Game #1117: Tales of Arise

  I think.... the Tales series has just grown the beard.

 It's been a long while since I last played a Tales of game, the last one being the disappointing Switch port of Vesperia, and an even longer while since the last, new game in the series, it being Berseria. Tales of Arise captivated me since the very first reveal trailer, which is why I avoided any and every new piece of information that came out since, which means I had quite a few expectations out of this game.... and, thankfully, they delivered.

 While Tales of has always gone for generic anime aesthetics, and this game is no exception, character proportions in this game are a bit more realistic than before... which goes hand in hand with the new art-style they went through, as characters and environments look beautiful thanks to a cellshaded filter that makes everything look as if colored by pencils. It's gorgeous, and everything feels a bit more mature than before. The story involves slavery in its different forms, and while it's not the only game that has dealt with this subject, like Symphonia did before, it does a much better job at it, and does an acceptable job at portraying how characters deal with it and the discrimination that it implies. Tales of games, even the darker ones like Vesperia, have always been pretty half-baked with their themes, always shying away from more mature explorations of their themes, and while this one isn't quite there yet... I think it took multiple steps in the right direction, making characters a bit more mature helped immensely with that. On the other hand, there are the mandatory and exploitative hotsprings scenes found in most games of the series, so... yeah.

 The game has taken a few pages from other games Namco Bandai has published, namely, the Souls series. Basic attack is now bound to the R1 button, and dodge to R2, plus, enemy encounters respawn when you sleep at bonfires, which restore your HP and CP. Artes, special moves, are now performed with X, Square and Triangle, and later down the line you can unlock a secondary set of Artes by holding down L2. All six party members have their own fighting styles and peculiarities, and you can call on them with the directional pad, yes, even the two members who are currently benched. And you'll need to. Some enemies are shielded, so you'll need Law to break their shields, other enemies are nimble, so you must call upon Dohalim to root them, etc. The main character, Alphen, is a bit less specific, but he can 'down' pretty much every enemy, letting you land a few free hits on them,

 Combat is fun, it really is, however, pretty early on you'll realize that enemies and bosses are HP sponges, being able to tank a ton of hits. Two thirds into the game I lowered the difficulty to Story and never looked back, because even in that difficulty, dealing with enemies was taking too long, which made the game get a bit stale for me. Even on the default setting, bosses where a bit harder than you'd expect because, except Alphen's boost attack and triggering a single-time event, there's no way to inflict the 'break'/'down' status on them. Money in the game is very hard to come buy, and the really useful items, like Orange gels, are super expensive. Orange gels restore CP, a shared pool of points necessary to perform healing artes AND to break down certain barriers, so expect to spend a few orange gels and life bottles on every boss. This pseudo-artificial difficulty might have a reason to be... Namco is offering paid microtransactions for Gald, among other things. Sure, if you are having trouble you could always lower the difficulty setting, but still. In my case, I felt like the default difficulty setting was just right, I had to spend a few items on bosses, enemies were easy, if time-consuming, but I found a few people complaining about the difficulty online, so this might've been a bit scummy on Namco's part. Still, I'm willing to let it go since the Story difficulty setting lets you skate by, although even fights against lower-level enemies will still take more time than I would've liked to get through.

 Titles in this game double as skill trees-kinda. Every title you unlock, either by progressing through the story or by fulfilling certain conditions, comes with 5 skills, one unlocked by default and other four you can purchase with SP earned from battles. if you get all five skills you'll get a passive bonus to that character stats. This way you can slowly build your characters to your leisure, as skills go from new Artes, to extending the window for a Perfect Dodge, increasing your stamina(which is used to pull off Artes), how quickly your stamina recovers, how many basic attacks your character can link together or other, character-specific buffs. Skill Points are earned rather slowly, so you have to be careful with how you spend them, although eventually, probably on New Game+, you'll be able to unlock everything for everyone.

 The game took me about 40 hours to finish, and 50 to Platinum, since I really liked the game all things considered. It's about what you'd expect out of an RPG, and there are tons of sidequests to fulfill, as well as a decent amount of bonus bosses to take down. As per usual in the more modern entries, in-game customization items are fairly... disappointing. Most costumes are either boring or just recolors, and every accessory veers towards the goofy, so you probably won't use them. There are some better, cooler costumes... if you pay for them.

 Skits are back, and there are over 300 of them. Last time I watched Skits in the series they played out through character cut-outs, now we get barely-animated comic-book cutouts, which are still fairly low-budgety, but a step-up from what came before. Cooking is back too, and you can do it at Inns or Bonfires, conferring party bonuses for a specific amount of time. As with 80% of modern games, collecting tons of garbage from fallen enemies as well as form the environment is a must, as new weapons are not bought, but rather crafted, and you'll need specific materials to do so. I was never at a point in which I had to go out of my way to grind for materials, so it's not too bad.

 For my money, I think this one is one of the better Tales of games in the franchise. I'd probably place it on my top 3 next to Symphonia and Graces F. I love the new art-style, I love the more mature narrative, I really liked what they did with the combat and other systems, such as how titles work. I really feel like the Tales of series should continue down this route, y'know, I've liked the series ever since I first played Phantasia, but they've always tried being Anime so hard that they always felt a bit bland. Be it the generic anime artstyle or rather trite and cliched characters, and while this one doesn't stray too far from what came before it, it does so in enough ways as to stand out from them, and to show just how much better the series could be if it was a little less anime.

 8.5

Game #1116: Tony Hawk's American Sk8land(Nintendo DS)

 Now in true 3D.

 Tony Hawk's American Sk8land was passable on the Gameboy Advance, but this DS version? Now we are talkin'! The GBA offering felt like a scaled-down TH game, but this? This one plays like a scaled-down Tony Hawk's game, and it's more than just a scaled down port, as they opted instead for an original take inspired on a home console counterpart, which I feel plays better to the console's strengths and weaknesses.

 Most of the mechanics that were in American Wasteland are here, however, curiously enough, while American Sk8land on the GBA kept the ability to get off the board in it... it's missing in this one! As far as I can remember, that's the only main mechanic that is really missing in here. Reverts, flatland and grind tricks, wallplants et all are all here. Well, BMX bikes are missing too, but no biggie. There are a few exclusive mechanics in game, though, for instance, you can slow down time for a short while and you get a few easy super specials per combo, which are performed by tapping the touchscreen, which are really convenient. There's a character creator element here, but it's a bit pathetic, as well as Story, Classic and Free Skate modes, making it a decent package. Oh! And we've got a small selection of licensed music, including Green Day, that I quite enjoyed.

 The game has a very colorful, cell-shaded look that makes it pretty unique among Tony Hawk games. Considering it's running on a fairly weak handheld, I think it looks really nice and is a nice fit for the system. The touchscreen doubles as a map, which is something the previous game desperately needed, but, in this one, since the camera is set behind your back, it's a bit redundant. A bit. For you see, the draw distance on collectibles is kinda short, so you'll have to rely on the touchscreen to get the S-K-A-T-E or C-O-M-B-O letters more easily, since they only show up when you are close to them. A bit off-putting at first, but nothing you can't get used to. Plus, the levels themselves are fully rendered, so when it comes to the core skating there's no problem. The game has about 7 skate parks, and they are fairly small, which is understandable. Just like the other ports of the American Sk8land/Wasteland, this game offers an interconnected world, and unlike the GBA version, exits are highlighted. That said, there are no multi-zone goals or goals that unlock later, so there's no real reason to go back to a previous area if you already cleared every goal, unless you are just fooling around.

 The story mode is a pretty decent offering, with about 15 goals per level. You upgrade your stats by fulfilling challenges, like in the home console version, so you must Grind for X amount of seconds to improve your grind, perform X amount of flips in a combo to increase your flip stat, etc. I really like this system, which was introduced in Underground if I remember correctly, but it also makes it easy to fully max out your stats on the first few minutes of your playthrough! That said, the missions themselves... are pathetically easy. Most of the time, after you speak with an NPC the game will place you directly in front of whatever you have to do. What's more, the final challenge before unlocking the final skate park is just performing an acid drop. The game spawns you right in front of the hole, so you just move forwards, hold down R and you cleared it. There are plenty of missions like this. this probably makes it a decent Tony Hawk game to start with.

 The Classic Mode feels a bit like an afterthought, every stage has 3 combo challenges, 3 point challenges, collect C-O-M-B-O, collect S-K-A-T-E, find the hidden tape, and then two other goals that are usually "Grind X rail" and "Natas Spin 4 of these". Eventually the Natas Spin goals turn into flips, but nothing too crazy. It's still extra, bonus content, so it really is better than nothing, but Story Mode is the reason you are playing this game, not Classic.

  This game felt like a perfect scaling down of Tony Hawk. Sure, I think the game could've used some more interesting missions and more bonus unlockables, but it's pretty much the only 3rd person Tony Hawk's game with a cellshaded look, and that alone makes it stand out from the rest. Thankfully, the game plays even better than it looks, as it plays and feels like the other games in the series, albeit at a smaller scale. I had a few crashes with the game, mainly in the final skate park, mashing through the dialogue to restart a certain objective would sometimes crash the game, something I managed to replicate like 3-4 times. My bad for failing such an easy objective(Seriously, it was one of those simple Acid Drop goals). Now, I can only hope that Proving Ground on the DS is just as good, if not better, than this one.

 7.0

Game #1115: Tony Hawk's American Sk8land(Gameboy Advance)

  Where's my licensed music?!

 One can never have enough Tony Hawk in their life, so here's Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, American Wasteland's companion game. My story with Hawk on the handheld is limited to the first two released on the Advance, back when I played on Emulators, and while those games received a lot of praise... I never liked them too much. Still, Tony Hawk is Tony Hawk, so it's time to give it a try. Plus, I got myself an unopened boxed copy! 

 The game features a Story Mode, a Classic Mode, and a 2 Player Vs Mode. There are 7 skateparks total which is pretty nice. The Story Mode plays like the console game, you skate around looking for NPCs that will give you a task to fulfill, you increase your stats and create your own skater. Classic Mode is a bit lame, it gives you 2 minutes to complete a set of tasks on any of the seven levels, the problem is... every stage has the same objectives! Get the COMBO letters in a single combo, collect all SKATE letters, perform X point combos and amass X total points and find a secret tape. That's it. No level-exclusive objectives, no nothing. It's better than nothing, but it feels uninspired nonetheless.

 The story mode... oh boy, the story mode. You start off by creating a skater, but you get almost nothing to work with. Two pair of pants, two shirts and a few hair colors. Everything else is slowly unlocked as you complete goals, 17 per stage(Except the Training stage, the Vans stage(that has 18) and the Warehouse stage, that only has 8 and no unlocks). Completing objectives is also how you upgrade your stats. Something I really liked, just like the console version was the first open-world Tony Hawk game, they too tried something like that on this release, except that every level is interconnected through a mini-loading screen. That's fairly neat, and ambitious, but... stage exits aren't highlighted. You are just supposed to find them and remember how every level connects with each other. There's no map, no nothing. Lame.

 And that's kind of a big deal, because the game is played from an isometrical viewpoint, so you don't get much screen real state to see in front of you. And levels are surprisingly large, which makes finding NPCs a bit of a chore. And some NPCs only appear when you fulfill some objectives, so there's a lot of aimless wandering as you hope to come across the mission-giving NPCs. And try not to accidentally exit the stage, or your pending goal list will delete itself, so you'll have to find the NPCs again. This issue also extends with a few goals that require you finding stuff. Stages are simply too large and the viewpoint is less than ideal, making these missions super boring. It's even worse when you get collecting missions that encompass more than one level. One of the worst of the bunch is when you have to collect 20 items throughout four stages. There's no indicator that there are 5 items per zone in the first place. Oooh, but the worst mission in the entire game is the final one, in which you must grind all five Oldschool gaps, one per level. Where are these gaps? Who knows. I had to look up a youtube video in order to finish it.

 While the missions are lame... the gameplay is really solid. They managed to cram most of the basic Tony Hawk mechanics into such a few amount of buttons and it works well most of the time. The isometrical angle makes it a bit hard to position yourself sometimes, or even to understand some of the level geometry, but the controls are solid. There were also a few buggy half pipes here and there that made me bail my tricks as soon as I got on the air, but nothing too bad.

 The visual presentation is really good, they managed to make the game look cellshaded, and very, very colorful. As good as it looks, the soundtrack is rather lacking. I understand why it'd be hard to put licensed music on the GBA's pathetic sound chip, but what little music there is was kinda grating on the ears.

 It sucks, but despite the game play so well, all things considered, the way objetives work range from boring to dull. All the collect X amount of things just work against the game's strength, which in turn isn't helped by having levels that are so large, which don't play well with the viewpoint either. AS disappointing as this game is, the fact that they got the gameplay to work so well on the GBA... makes me hopeful that maybe the previous games on the Advance will fare a bit better.

 5.0

Game #1114: Road 96

  A bumpy ride.

 Road 96 is not exactly what I expected, but it was still an enjoyable ride. This is a somewhat procedurally generated walking simulator in which you take the role of various kids and teens trying to cross the border of the fictional town of Petria.

 There's an ongoing argument about politics in videogames and what not, but Road 96 is unapologetically political, bringing parallels to the past US selection between Trump and Clinton in the form of Tyrak and Flores. It also deals with border control and the infamous Trump Wall. In this game, election day is a few weeks away, and as previously mentioned, you take the role of a nameless kid that is trying to cross the border. What may take you by surprise is that you are not the hero of the story, but rather, there are 8 main characters: Zoe, Alex, Fanny, John, Sonya, Mitch and his brother and, lastly,  Jarrod, and you, as a nameless kid, are just somebody they meet. Every character has about 8 or 9 events that you may randomly trigger as you play the game. Which events you get and when is completely random, that's the procedurally generated part of the game, some events don't even contain these characters, and it's entirely possible you may not see every possible event in a single playthrough.

 The game has seven chapters, and in each chapter you play as a different kid. The game doesn't shy away from murdering children, so it's possible that you'll die on your way to the border. What's more, if your character dies the game will give you another kid for that chapter, so the easiest way to watch every scenario is to have at least one kid die on every chapter. Amusing. Certain events will reward you with perks, and perks are kept between kids, allowing you more dialogue choices and even options on every scenario, such as a lock pick to open doors.

 Scenarios in the game are super simple, most of the time they are just about picking different answers, although sometimes they spice things up by having you shoot at stuff or other various, simple activities. Some answers matter, some do not, some will get you killed, others will let you survive. There are a couple different major endings depending on which choices you make. I think the game did a decent job at portraying gray moralities. While Tyrak is obviously the bad guy, none of your answers are every pro-Tyrak, but in a way, it makes sense, every kid you play as is trying to cross the border, so it wouldn't make sense for them to support Tyrak. Plus, some of the main characters are pro-Tyrak and they are given depth, plus, even the activists have their own bad apples, so the game is not grandstanding on its own morality.

 The game has a fantastic soundtrack, the main theme song being particularly catchy, even though the game loves to play that tune at every chance it gets.

 On the other hand, the performance on Switch is laughable. The game is very rudimentary in the graphics department, character animations can be excessively wonky, there's a scenario in which Sony Sanchez falls out of a car and I can't stop laughing at that scene every time I watch it. Still, a humble presentation is something I can play ball with, the problem is the performance. The game fails to even reach 30fps on the Switch, and that's just inexcusable considering how lackluster the visual presentation is. I've watched some footage of the PC version and it's infinitely better.

 One last thing I'd like to mention, is that the game tries being cute with dialogue choices, for you see, when characters are moving, the dialogue options move next to them. It's a neat visual effect, it is, but it also means that you might pick the wrong dialogue choice by mistake because the option moved just when you were pressing A on top of it!

 Road 96 is an interesting take on the walking simulator formula, and I found the plot very engaging. The more events you trigger the more you information you get to slowly piece together the past of Petria, as well as how some characters are connected with each other. Taking control of various secondary characters was a fairly original way to present the story too. That said, as much praise as I've got for the game, the performance on Switch shouldn't be this poor, and it did take me out of the game multiple times just how stuttery the framerate was.

 6.0

Game #1113: Ridge Racer(PSP)

  The Ridge Racer Compendium.

 Now this is an interesting Ridge Racer release! This was the first game in the series to introduce Nitro Boosting, which I think is one of the key features that made the latter entries in the series much superior, but it also features a bevy of content from the first four games as well as the arcade exclusive, Rave Racer!

 The game features 12 total tracks with reverse versions of each, as well as a ton of remixes from previous games. I think only two tracks are completely original. But it's fair, I feel, as it reuses tracks from the PS1 games, now uplifted to look better than ever. The then-new Nitrous mechanic also means you'll play them in a new way too. While the soundtrack is quite large... I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think most songs were up to par with the series' best.

 The core of the game is the same as always, drive around, drifting to get an edge, but in this case, the more and faster you drift the more nitrous you'll stock which you can then use to get turbos. It's simple, it's fun.

 You'll spend most of your time in World Tour, which is where you'll unlock most things. Maybe Mario Kart spoiled me, but I hate it when games reuse tracks in their tours/championships, and this is the case, so you'll be playing the same tracks over and over and over again in order to pad out the game. I wasn't much of a fan of the unlock system either. Y'see, cars are divided into classes, from 1 to 6. Throughout most of your time you'll be stuck with the initial three cars of each class until you reach the class 6 world tours, which was odd.... after Class 1 tours are done and over, now I'm unlocking the other Class 1 cars? Kinda lame, isn't it? On the other hand, despite the fact that tracks are shared between tours, there are a lot of tour to go through, so if you like the game there's content in spades.

 Well, I liked Ridge Racer for what it is. It's not my favorite in the series, but it has a ton of stuff to do and I feel like it set in stone a few tweaks and enhancements that would only make the series better.

 8.0

Game #1112: The Darkness II

  Quite a heartbreaker.

 Top Cow's comics are far, far from being what I'd call classy comics. They are all about boobs and blood, which is why it's so surprising how the very poignant The Darkness came from such a trashy comic book. And here we are with the The Darkness II, the sequel nobody talks about and which undersold considerably.

 There are two different campaigns in the game, either Story Mode in which you play as Jackie Stacado, continuing from where the first game left off, as Jackie taking over his very own Mafia empire, or Vendettas, which runs parallel to the main game and you can play as any of four different hitmen. I never played the original game, but from what I heard, it seems like it was a more grounded take on the comic book. This one goes a bit more comic-bookish, now featuring a really good lucking cell-shaded look and characters that seem more comic bookish, in both personality and design, than what little I've seen of the original game

 As a first person shooter, the shooting and aiming is super basic, you can carry three different weapons: A two handed weapon, like an assault rifle or a shotgun, as well as two one-handed guns, such as pistols or uzis, that you can dual-wield at the cost of not being able to aim down the iron sights. But, thankfully, things are more interesting than that thanks to Jackie's Darkness powers. He grows two dark, living tentacle appendages as well as gains regenerating health that can be sped up by eating the hearts of fallen enemies. Killing enemies now becomes super fun, as the left tentacle(L2) can be used to pick up and throw all sort of things, like saws, or pipes, to maim enemies. You can also pick up stunned enemies and perform gory executions on them that instantly consume their hearts. Meanwhile, the right tentacle is used by using the right analog stick in conjunction with the R2 button in order to perform melee attacks. Defeating enemies in creative ways rewards you with points that you can use to enhance Jackie's abilities and even grant him even more darkness powers, such as a swarm that harms and distracts enemies or the ability to create a mini black hole. Honestly, wielding the Darkness alongside your guns made the game incredibly fun.

 That said, there's one key thing to keep in mind: Light sources ill diminish or downright remove your darkness powers, so you'll have to be on the lookout for light sources in order to destroy them, lest you get handicapped in battle. In this game you fight enemies that actually know about the darkness, so you'll have to deal with their light traps.

 After you are done with the rather meaty story mode, you get the mini vendettas campaign. Each of the four characters gets unique abilities and their own skill trees, although they are smaller than Jackie's. Each character also shares one ability with Jackie. For instance, my boy Inugami wields a deadly Katana as one of his single handed weapons, and he can perform Jackie's swarm attack. While it reuses some assets from the story campaign, some stages and bosses are exclusive to this mode, and it could be played online. It also has a secondary mode, Hit List, which features repurposed smaller maps against special bosses. It's definitely a nice extra.

 While the story mode lacks the emotional impact the original had, I think the game itself was a blast to play due to how many fun things you can do with the Darkness as you fill your enemies with lead. The cell-shaded graphics look really nice, and do make the game stand out quite a bit. It's a mystery to me as to why this game underperformed so badly and why it's never talked about. I get it, the first game had a great story, I get it, but while this game's story is nothing remarkable, I feel like the gameplay deserves a lot of praise.

 8.5

Game #1111: Transformers - Beast Wars Transmetals(Playstation 1)

  Less than meets the eye.

 A lot of people grew up with Transformers, well, I grew up with Beast Wars. It was amazing, and Cheetor was my favorite, so much so that he was the first transformers toys I ever got. Transforers: Beast Wars Transmetals is a fighting game, of all things, based on the season in which both heroes and villains got shiny new forms.

 The game is made up of eight basic characters, four Maximals(the good guys) and four Predacons. There are 4 hidden characters in VS mode, but the are nothing more than palette swaps of other characters. The is made up of Story Mode, VS, VS VPU, Survival and Training, as well as the curious TV Mode, which is just the Story mode but played entirely by the CPU, which is a novel idea to be sure. Most modes are pretty self-explanatory, but story mode is kinda interesting. Both Maximals and Predacons get their own campaigns, with a introductory cutscene and an ending cutscene. The game offers a grid that you must traverse from one end to another, and each block on the grid represents a fight, you can pick any character from your side for each battle. Something very interesting, even though Rhino isn't playable, he shows up in his Transmetal form, which NEVER made it into the show,  during maximal cutscenes!

 This is a 3-D Arena fighting game of all things. You have full 360 degree movement over small arenas, with different levels, obstacles and hazards. True to the show, characters have access to a Robot and Beast form, as well as a super basic vehicle form. The vehicle form is super lame, it can only move quickly and perform a tackle. While there are two attack buttons, in beast mode they both perform the same attack combo, and in robot mode they also perform the same combo, they come into play when you are in robot mode and standing far away from your opponent, as one button shoots orange, homing bullets or stronger, but not tracking, blue bullets. There's also a charge attack, by holding down either attack button, that is different depending on whether you are in Beast or Robot form.

 There's on mechanic that was fairly original, all things considered, how you stock up on super moves. Basically, a red bar will start filling over your health bar, once it reaches the other end of your life bar you get another stock. This means that the less health you have the faster you'll get more super move stocks! Super moves are preformed by pressing the two attack buttons, and there's a shortcut for it on the shoulder buttons, but for some reason, sometimes it simply refused to go off.

 The fighting mechanics are shallow to be sure, but worst of all, the gameplay is just boring. There's no fun combo mechanics and the game definitely doesn't make up for it with style. The one thing the game has going for it is that it features an animated version of Rhino's elusive transmetal form.

 3.0

Game #1110: Enslaved - Odyssey to the West

  No super saiyans in this retelling.

 I adore Journey to the West, to the point that it's one of my favorite books of all time. A ton of years ago I tried out Enslaved: Odyssey to the West's demo and I didn't like it. The character designs looked ugly, Monkey's super saiyan hair looks ridiculous, and the gameplay just didn't do it for me. But since I'm on a Ninja Theory binge eventually I'd have to face the game again... and it seems I missed out.

 As it could be surmised from the above, this game is a very loose retelling of Journey to the West, but set in a world without gods in which robots are enslaving humanity. The game starts with Monkey, now a human with gorilla-like posturing, and Trip, a techwizard-woman, escaping a slaver ship. Here's my first issue, as far as we know Monkey is a decent fellow, and not a trouble maker like Wukong, and Trip just enslaves him, by outfitting him while unconscious, with a slave crown because she wants to get home. Basically, Trip makes a horrible first impression because she is a jerk. There's a bit of ludonarrative dissonance too, y'see, the crown will kill Monkey if he doesn't obey, which in gameplay terms means that if you get too far away from trip you'll die. So, chapter 4 starts right after Monkey and Trip start getting chummy with each other... and you are introduced to Cloud, a hooverboard of sorts. You try out, it's fast, so you accidentally get too far and get killed because Trip, who is a total prick, tells you to return, but it's too late since Cloud was too fast. Basically, the game makes it hard not to hate Trip, even though it seems we should be sympathetic to her plight? Yeah, enforcing the distance thing does the plot no favors. It's also annoying if you think you might have missed something, but now you can't reach it because Trip will murder you.

 As for the game itself, it's an adventure game that mixes beat'em up with light parkour segments, ala Uncharted but less exciting. Combat is fairly simple, you have a basic attack you can string into a combo, a strong attack, you can dodge and you have a limited block. You can also collect ammo and use your staff to shoot plasma energy, which is quite overpowered. Collecting orbs, by finding them laying on the various stages of by defeating enemies, lets you upgrade various different abilities, as well as unlock new abilities, such as a power attack, or enhance your basic attacks, such as wider range on your wide swipe. Heavenly Sword had more than a few performance hiccups, but Enslaved runs much better, it's not super smooth, but nothing worth complaining about. Overall, the combat might be simple, but it was quite enjoyable nontheless.

 When you aren't pounding machines you'll be exploring the game's linear levels. The puzzles are easy to figure out and the parkour, while not super exciting, does add some variety to the gameplay. Sometimes, Parkour will be a means to reach shooting enemies, in which case you'll have to try to reach cover before your energy shield goes away and you can call on Trip to call a decoy for a few seconds.

 One highlight for me was the game's opening section, in which you must escape the Slaver's flying machine as Trip slowly causes it to explode. It's exciting, and it does a good job of introducing you to the core basics of the combat and parkour. That said.... it also shows you just how buggy the game can be. In one of the earliest cutscenes, in which Monkey finds his bike... Monkey completely disappeared from the cutscene. At one time, Monkey's staff just wasn't appearing when I was attacking! Sound effects will sometimes sound garbled or subdued mid-combat.

 Other gameplay buts were just as wonky. Parkour can sometimes be a bit finicky, you might be mashing X but Monkey just won't jump or throw Trip as fast as you'd like. There are some hit animations that look very sloppy, for instance, the robot dog's reaction animation to getting shot, it lacks any kind of oomph and just looks buggy.

 Despite the game's shortcomings I felt like the overall package was pretty good. Despite my gripes with how some story elements are presented, the narrative kept me invested the whole time through. The gameplay as a whole was unremarkable, nothing you haven't seen done before and which has certainly been done better, but, it was more than acceptable, and bashing robots was quite entertaining. This game certainly showed just how much potential Ninja Theory had.

 7.5

Game #1109: Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles

 You'll need to take a deep breath before voicing this game's title.

 There's no denying that Kimetsu no Yaiba is the hottest shonen anime out there right now, so Bamco decided to strike while the iron was hot with Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba: The Hinokami Chronicles. Cyberconnect2 was in charge of bringing the series to 3-D, which was an exciting prospect considering how much more epic they managed to make Naruto, however, it seems Namco wasn't too keen on giving them the budget for it.

 The Hinokami Chronicles is first and mostly, a 2-on-2 arena anime fighter, much like their previous Naruto titles. You have a basic attack button, that changes animations depending on which direction you are holding as you deal the final strikes and a super move button that has three different special attacks(Neutral, tilting the analog stick and holding down L1) that consumer energy from your energy gauge. You can also block or parry, as well as dodge with the circle button or chase an enemy down, you can even dash-cancel your attack strings to extend your combo... if time allows it. The game has this... unique mechanic in which the moment you land an attack you get a brief window of time, highlighted by a small orange gauge next to the combo counter, that shows how much time you've got left before the enemy will simply fall out of your possible combo. It certainly is a... unique idea, I'm not quite sure if I liked it to be honest.

 There's a third gauge, besides your life bar and energy bar, which would be a super gauge, and you can use stocks from this gauge to either enhance your attacks for a short while, by pressing L2, or spend your stocks on your ultimate move by pressing R2. Overall, it's adequate for an anime fighter. It's not very deep, but it looks relatively stylish, although not as crazy as Naruto would eventually get. That said, the PS4 version suffers from some really awful input delay, making tilt-attacks and parries(Which require tilting the analog stick) a bit harder to perform. Considering it's an anime fighter, I don't think it's a deal breaker, but the game doesn't play as smoothly as it looks.

 Besides the VS mode you get a training Mode, that features challenges for each character, and CC2's trademark Story Mode. With Naruto, CC2 took quite a lot of liberties to make fights more epic than they were in the source material, which I think was one of the series' strengths. For Kimetsu no Yaiba they went for a straight adaptation. In their defense, KnY's fights are way more stylish than the fights in Naruto. And the game faithfully adapts the entire first season of the anime plus the movie, Mugen Train, they kept a lot of details in which really surprised me. Oh! And unlike Naruto, they kept the blood in! The Story Mode has some forced-walking sections in-between fights, and some dumb 'side missions', which consist of interacting with stuff you'd have to try hard to miss. Regardless, as an adaptation of the series, it's a 9/10. I would've cut back on some of the needless wandering, but as needless as it was... I also think it added some charm to the game. I also would've liked if they tried making things even more epic, like they did with Naruto, but then again, making Naruto's fights flashier was much easier considering the source material. Kimetsu no Yaiba's fights were SO good that they might've risked making them worse.

 Sadly, while it knocked the story mode out of the park.... the game's roster is pathetic. I love a good adaptation, and the game lets you play the first season and the movie, and it's quite thorough, but... it's barely got any meaty content. The game only has 18 playable characters, none of them being the demons. Sure, they are coming as free DLC... but those are extra downloads, they are not in the disc, now, are they? Of those 18 characters, 6 are glorified "Kimetsu Academy" costumes that only change the ultimate attack animation, everything else is shared with their basic counterparts. And three of those 18 characters are Tanjiros, you get Tanjiro, you get Fire Dance Tanjiro(who, at least, has a different moveset) and you get Kimetsu Academy Tanjiro. So all in all, only 12 original characters. That's pathetic. And some of the character choices? Sabito I understand. He barely showed any abilities, but he was Tanjiro's first roadblock. But why is Makomo here? Why is friggin' Murata, a joke character, here? No playable Kanao is a darn travesty. So not only is the roster 18 characters small, not only is a third of those characters made up of clones, but of the 12 'unique' characters, some of those are terrible, terrible choices.

 As great a job as it did adapting the series... Once players finish it they'll spend most of their time in VS mode, but, sadly, what mattered the most in an anime fighter, a large character roster, is sorely lacking. I can only hope that just like they did with My Hero One's Justice, they'll take this base and build up on it for the next game, more than doubling this lackluster character roster. That said, it feels like this game is completely skippable until the next one comes.

 5.0

Game #1108: Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon 2

  Zangetsu got fat, because of all this filler.

 Despite Ritual of the Night's mixed reception, the original Curse of the Moon, Bloodstained's spin-off, was received pretty favorably by everyone, so it's no surprise that the spin-off itself got itself its very own sequel, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. It's got more characters, more items and more stages than the first game... as well as a ton more fat.

 The game is made up of eight stages that you'll have to go through at least 3 times if you truly want to finish it. On your first run, you'll play as Zangetsu and join forces with Ritual of the Night's Dominique on the first stage, then the gun-tooting Robert on the second stage, an Hachi, the mech-riding Corgi on the third stage. Each character has their own unique abilities, stats and sub-weapons that will let the player take different routes throughout every stage. Each stage also hides a permanent upgrade for everyone's stats, if you can find it. After you finish the game you'll unlock Episode 2, and now you'll have to play through the entire game again, except that one of the three new characters is missing and you have the other two from the get-go. Oh, and it's a bit harder now. Depending on how you finish this Episode you'll either unlock Episode EX or Episode Final. Let's say that you want to unlock everyone, so you unlock and play Episode EX. Now you have to play an even harder version of the same eight stages, but playing with Gebel, Arthur and Miriam, the other characters from the first game. Sure, now you can take different alternate routes, but some parts of every route overlap and the end-stage bosses are the same. And now you unlock Episode Final...

 Which is the entire game again, but now you must unlock all six extra characters again. As with every other episode, there are permanent upgrades to find.... except that there are now two per stage and their efficiency is halved because screw you, keep replaying the same darn stages over and over again. This means that you'll have to play some stages OVER three times, because A) You might not have the character you need yet and B) taking a route towards one power-up may not allow you to take the route to the other power up hidden in that stage. The original game was short but sweet, this one is so long its downright boring, I wound up hating the game by the time it was over.

 It doesn't help that the game is much harder than the original, and it's not even rewarding, between having to play the same stages so many times, to the fact that sometimes enemy placement is downright unfair considering how clunky, on purpose, controls and movement are. If you liked 8-bit games because you enjoy masturbating your ego over being able to deal with unfair level design and clunky gameplay, you are in luck, this is exactly down your alley. Still, I'll give the game this: It can still be fun. My first playthrough of Episode One on the veteran difficulty setting WAS fun, but every time I had to go back to the same stages I felt my excitement with the game decrease and decrease until I was dreading have to play the same stages again. Finishing the game didn't make me happy I played through it or sad that I was done with it... but just relieved. Relieved that I didn't have to play it again.

 In a word... I find Curse of the Moon 2 to be disappointing. I love the new characters, I love the fact that eventually you get every character from the original and every character from the sequel and that you can change between characters at any time, I love how even though we are up to 7 total characters they still managed to make everyone different, I love how it's more Classic-vania style gameplay.... but man, I simply can't agree with how they made this game harder just because, or how you are supposed to play the same stages over and over and over and over and over and over again.... it stopped being any fun after my second time around. Unlocking Episode Final was so bittersweet for me, I finally got access to every character.... but now I have to play some stages up to three times, meaning I played some stages over 6 times total, and every time it got harder just because. From the levels themselves to the flow of the game.... it's poorly designed, and there's no way around it. If you ask, I'm gonna stick with the first one.

5.5