Game #1144: Viking - Battle for Asgard

 An ax to grind.

 My quest to find Action games I might've ignored continues with Viking: Battle for Asgard. From the same developer that made Spartan: Total Warrior, Viking is a very different beast, even if it shares a few elements and ideas.

 The game is divided into three acts, and in each you are thrown into a different Island. Each Island has a set of objectives you can complete in any order, with a few exceptions, before you can tackle a siege of an enemy base. The game has a very simple formula: Find encampments to liberate your fellow Vikings from the evil Legion, awaken a Dragon to help you, a boring stealth-section in which you must retrieve something from the base you will siege later, etc. Everything translates into hacking and lashing a ton of baddies. At times it does feel a bit repetitive, but I'd say that I enjoyed the gameplay loop for the most part. It reminded me of indie titles in which you are just thrown into the game's world, 'Go, complete these tasks' and you just go about them. It's simple, it's formulaic, but it also feels cozy.

 Sieges, on the other hand, were rather bland. These always play out the same "Kill the 2 shamans", and then the siege goes onto the next step.... kill the next set of shamans. And so on until you are told to capture the enemy portal. You get unlimited respawns as long as your own shamans are alive, and while the scale of these battles is rather impressive, as there are hundreds upon hundreds of allies and enemies, the framerate tanks. Hard. Sieges should've been the ultimate reward for completing every objective, something to look forward to.... but I felt like they were some form of punishment instead, as they were so boring.

 Combat is a bit janky, but it's not awful. You have a weak and strong attack, landing hits builds your Rage stocks which can be used for special moves. Defeating enemies, or using a finisher before they keel over dead, rewards you with Rune energy, which you can use to imbue your sword with Fire, Ice or Thunder. Every element is basically the same, but Thunder and Ice were the most useful, the former kills most weak enemies in a single hit, the other one in two. The lock on is pathetic, as it's more of a strafe, and the dodging is pathetic. Here's lies the problem: Items are used by holding down R1 and pressing a face button, Rune magic is toggled on(And can't be turned off, so it must run out) by holding down R2 and pressing a face button, special moves are triggered by holding down L1 and pressing a face button... but dodging is done by pressing L2+Triangle. It's super confusing, because L2 is the lock on and it's worthless, but even worse, the dodge is the most pathetic back-step you've ever seen.

 Backstep aside, the combat is serviceable. It's not the most fun you'll ever have, but it gets the job done. I wasn't too keen on the QTEs to kill most bosses and mini-bosses, however. But what's worse, activating stuff, even just opening a locked door, requires mashing on the circle button, which was a bit annoying. I mean, why must I smash the button just to use a goddamn key?

 I enjoyed most of my time with Viking: Battle for Asgard, but make no mistake, the game is not a diamond in the rough or an obscure gem as it's missing quite a bit of depth and polish, but for as many shortcomings as it's got there was a certain charm to its design that made it enjoyable.

 6.0

Game #1143: Green Lantern - Rise of the Manhunters

  In the brightest day, in the darkest night, no mediocre tie-in game shall escape my blog.

 I'll defend Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern movie to the ends of the earth, and yet, I can't say I ever planned on playing Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters. But I like beat'em ups, so... here I am.

 While it would've been easy to adapt the movie, they instead opted to go the 'expansion' route, so the game takes place after the movie, with Hal joining the ranks of the lanterns as a rookie. There's maybe too much story and dialogue to be honest. This is a beat'em up, and a movie tie-in game at that, so nobody is expecting stellar writing, so it's a bit annoying just how many micro-cutscenes there are per stage, micro-cutscenes you can't skip. There are even a few forced-walking segments. So, y'know, replaying stages can feel a bit annoying when you can't skip the uninteresting fat. That said, the entire game can be played in multiplayer, the second player taking the role of a Green Lantern Sinestro, albeit he plays exactly like Hal.

 The gameplay is decent, weak and strong attacks, a grab and a dash attack. The right analog stick can be used to dodge in any direction and you also get a shield and a temporary super mode. To add some spice into the combat, you gain access to 12 different powers or constructs, from an energy bat, energy maces to even an energy mech and an energy minigun. You can equip up to eight of these, four by holding down R2 and pressing any face button, and the other four on the L2 button. That said... There are four constructs that you need to use every now and then to progress through the game, so might as well have them equipped at all times, reducing your choices to just four out of eight. The combat is nothing worth writing home about, but it gets the job done. Three out of the ten stages are some inoffensive auto-scrolling flying/shooting stages. Most bosses require a QTE to be defeated, which is kinda lame.

 To keep things interesting, defeating enemies nets you points which can be used to upgrade your abilities or unlock the eight optional energy constructs. Most upgrades are just passive benefits, but having upgrades is still quite rewarding.

 Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is not the worst way to kill a few hours, that's for sure. Everything is serviceable, so fans of Green Lantern might get a kick out of it, provided they didn't hate the movie's aesthetics. 

 5.0

Game #1142: Mindjack

 THE WHOLE WORLD IS EXPLODE.

 Often considered one of the worst games ever made, I simply had to play Mindjack. And, well.... it's not that bad. No, really, it's far from good, but it's not all that bad. It's a cover-based third person shooter with a twist: You can mind-control enemies and civilians.

 The game is simple to a fault, to the point that it feels like an arcade shooter more than anything else. The game is made up of mostly very brief stages, which can be as shot as a single squared-arena confrontation. The worst part about this design is that you don't keep your weapons between encounters, so before each chapter you're back to your gun. Not that it matters, as there's not much variety. Two guns, two assault rifles, a shotgun, a sniper rifle and red, stronger variations of a few of those.

 The shooting is passable, but it's a bit wonky. Sometimes when hiding behind a wall, if you try to aim down the sights, your character will pop out of cover. Other times, even though you are aiming at an enemy, your bullets will hit your cover. It's not awful, but it's pretty janky.

 As you play though the game you unlock plug-ins. You can equip up to three of them, one is a difficulty plug-in, which makes the game easier or harder, and then there are two slots for perks. Such as more HP or things like that. It's a decent idea.

 Boss fights are very poorly done. Most of these are against large machinery. Most of the time, you only need to defeat the weaker enemies that spawn. Other times, an enemy with a rocket launcher will spawn alongside other enemies, you kill him, take the rocket launcher, land a few hits, wait for the rocket launcher enemy to respawn and do it all over again. It's not very fun. There's a human boss that you fight twice, a giant robotic gorilla and three ninjas that buck this trend, as they are simple fights against enemies that can soak up more damage, but they are the exception, not the rule.

 One of the funniest things about the game is how mind jacking works. At any time you can press R3+L3 to leave your body, you can then look for mind controlled enemies or civilians to hijack their bodies. It's usually better to try to cycle through available bodies with L1 and R1. Thing is... pretty much every combat arena has civilians in the middle of the shootout, and taking control over them will automatically have them pull a gun out of thin air. The one problem with this is that the AI of your character will go on the offensive, and if both your main body and your partner fall it's game over. You get about 10 seconds to revive them. Regardless, it's usually a better idea to hijack a body as soon as a shootout starts, because that way you have 2 CPUs helping you instead of just your AI partner. Mind-slaving enemies is a bit more fun. Most of the time, after weakening an enemy, you can press R1 to have the CPU take over them and help you. It's surprisingly fun, and amusing, to fight alongside an increasingly large amount of mind-slave enemies. That said, during boss fights you can't mind-slave enemies, probably in an attempt to make them tougher?

 The last thing worst talking about it the plot. Besides some wonky translation issues, like the 'THE WHOLE WORLD IS EXPLODE' line, the plot itself makes little sense. It has a rather interesting plot twist, but the way the story is told makes the foreshadowing feel like a plot hole. If the script was tighter and the plot was better told, the twist would've been great, but... yeah, it's poorly executed. At least you can get a few laughs at how bad it is.

 Mindjack is far and away from the worst games ever made, but it's definitely not very good. It's a subpar third person shooter with decent ideas that were poorly executed, and the ones that work well are hard to enjoy when the rest of the game is so mundane.

 4.0

Game #1141: One Piece - Gigant Battle 2 Shinsekai

  We never got the best One Piece games, it's so unfair.

 One Piece: Gigant Battle 2 Shinsekai is more than a cruel reminder of all the great OP games we never got localized, but it's also a stealth sequel to Jump Ultimate Stars. No, really! Ganbarion took everything they learned from that game and made something even better... which admittedly isn't saying much considering I think it's super overrated, but hear me out!

 Well, this is a platfrom-fighting game in which up to four characters and duke it out. It features beautiful 2-D Sprites on top of 3-D backgrounds which, admittedly, can sometimes be too much for the poor Nintendo DS, as framerate drops can and will happen.

 Just like with the JUS games, the game features a very meaty Single Player mode, in which you slowly recruit characters to your crew as you go through various islands. This is the only way you can unlock every character. It's a neat way to have single player content, and not every stage is a 'beat everyone' affair, sometimes you might need to help a character collect certain items, or you might have to protect a character, break something or prevent something from breaking. It's pretty good, however, some stages feel incredibly unfair to the point of annoyance, as you try to do something while having 3 other characters pummeling you. By the end of the game I was so annoyed I started skipping stages unless they unlocked a character or were mandatory. That said, you will need to consult a FAQ, as sometimes you might need a guide to figure out what the secondary objective is, which you might need to fulfill in order to unlock something.

 If I were to describe the game, it'd be Jump Ultimate Stars but more fun. First of all, you don't need to create 'decks' to play as someone or fight them, just pick your character and the CPU's and go at it. That immediately makes the game more accessible and snappy. The game has a single attack button, but they get so much mileage out of it that it's not even funny, there are two attack combos depending on whether you hold down forward or not when mashing B, then there are Up and Down B modifiers, then there are diagonal Up and diagonal Down B modifiers, you also get different aerial moves, three super moves and a grab. It's very fast-paced, and the sound effects make the combat pretty satisfying. One thing I didn't like.... Support Characters. Anime games LOVE support characters since they are a quick and easy way of adding more characters, but in this game some of them require tapping on the touch-screen, which can be a bit cumbersome in the midst of battle.

 Speaking of characters, this game has a massive 44 different characters, and only six of them feel a bit cloney, the pre-timeskip Mugiwaras. While the game covers the Fish Man Island arc, Jimbei is playable, so you get all the current Mugiwaras as playable characters, however, Nico Robin, Franky and Brook don't get their pre-timeskip forms. And, to be fair, Law, Eustass Kids and the other characters come in their pre-timeskip form, but hey, not much they could've done considering when the game came out. Regardless, it's a massive character roster, and they get pretty fun movesets.

 Now this is a proper licensed fighting game. Solid game mechanics, tons of characters, tons of stuff to do... it puts other games to shame. It's a bit of a shame we'd only get two more One Piece fighting games, and since they came out on the 3DS.... region locked.

 8.0

Game #1140: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

  Everyone wants their own Smash clone.

 Smash clones tend to be mediocre at best and downright awful at worst, and yet.... somehow, I fell into the hype machine for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. I didn't watch a single video about the game, but I did read how Melee players were praising the game, so my interest was piqued only slightly so.

 Well... it's pretty barebones. The game is made up of two modes: Free Battles and Arcade. As with any other Smash clone, there are up to four fighters, and you must hit enemies to raise their damage percentage making them easier to knock out of the stage. There are 20 characters, and I kinda liked the roster. I knew it was decent when I read someone complaining about how they didn't recognize most characters like Oblina, and it's funny, because it's Oblina I know, but the new characters? Who are they? And that's what makes the roster so good: A nice mix of old and new. That said... Avatar, Spongebob and Ninja turtles gets three representatives each, and that's almost half the roster spent on only three franchises. Adding to how barebones it feels, there are no voices. I mean, understandable, getting back the voice actors could be costly... but no soundalikes? Not even grunts for getting hit? Before each Arcade Match, which has no story mind you, you get text with one-liners from each character.... but why? It's not voiced, there's no story and what characters' say is completely random, probably quips from their shows. And there's the fact that there are no alternate costumes or colors, which is ridiculous. I downloaded the update patch, and... fair enough, it adds Garfield and a single outfit to every character. But they are so lazy, most characters simply get a hat on top of their heads, Reptar gets a simple pink color swap. I mean, if costumes are gonna be this lazy just scrap them and give everyone four different color palettes referencing other characters from their shows, it's not that hard.

 I also felt like some of the character models are just ugly. Toph's pose looks so weird, and Korra's legs look even weirder. The stages, on the other hand, I felt were well made, they are visually distinct and offer interesting venues to fight in. What isn't very nice are the relatively long loading times, about 20 seconds before a match.

 Well, gameplay comes next. When it comes to Smash clones, I feel like it's the physics where most of these games get it wrong... and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl isn't the exception. The game just feels very floaty. Unlike Smash, there are not items, but there are stage hazards you' probably want to dodge.

 As for the fighting, there are three attack buttons: Weak, Strong and Special. It's quite unlike smash, there's no weak attack combo, just single attacks you can use repeatedly before knock-back pushes the enemy away, there are not tilts and not Smash Attacks. Instead, every character has nine different attacks on the air and on the ground, by coupling the Weak, Strong or Special attack buttons with up or down to change them. I'll be fair, as floaty as the game is... the engine allows for interesting combos to be made, so much so that I had fun a few times seeing the ground-to-air combos I managed to pull off, and landing a spike move, an attack that spikes the enemy straight to the bottom, felt SO good. So while I don't think the physics felt too good, I won't deny that it can be fun.

 When it comes to defensive options, there are no dodges, but you have a shield that can be timed for a parry.

 It's not completely awful, but man, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl feels very lacking in content. It needed more characters, it needed better extras, it needed alternate colors, it NEEDS voices. Considering Nickelodeon eventually churned out a sequel to their kart racer, I hope this game gets a sequel that adds more content and makes the physics feel nicer.

 5.0

Game #1139: UltraAge

  Nobody makes durable weapons anymore.

 Ultra Age was one of 2021's most interesting surprise, as it was a smaller-budget action game from Asia that didn't receive much attention.

 The game's story is... all over the place, it has to do with clones, eternal life and other stuff that is not very interesting. And I doubt the translation was the problem, I simply think it had a boring excuse for a plot. What matters is that this is a very linear action game in which you play as a character named Age. Your weapon breaks early in the game, so now you get to create new weapons from crystals, albeit more fragile versions. Basically, your weapons break.

 And that would be a reason to dislike the game, but in an interesting twist.. it's not half bad. There are a total of six different swords, with different upgrade trees and combos, albeit you can only equip four at a time. What makes the system tolerable is that stocks for every weapon are quite common, so you shouldn't run out of stock at any moment. Each weapon has a unique attack switch, as well as a unique super move you can unleash once the weapon is about to break.

 The game is fairly simple, alongside the previously mentioned mechanics you get a weak and a strong attack, as well as a whip you can use to bring enemies towards you or teleport towards them. There's a dodge, and dodging at the last minute grants you a brief period of invincibility.

 All the mechanics make for an entertaining hack-and-slash. Usually weapons that break are a chore, but in this case it was never an issue. Maybe I'd consider relying on a different weapon if I felt my resources were running out, but at no point ever did I ran out of any one weapon. Some weapons are better against flesh enemies, other against robotic enemies, another one destroys blue armor... so you'll be shuffling weapons out of convenience too. It's fun, y'know? The combat engine isn't as free-form as God of War, much less DMC, but it makes for a fun time.

 You'll also get four different powers, which you can upgrade too: Radar, Time-Shift, Healing and Rage. Rage grants you strength for a short while and healing heals you. Radar is kinda funny, 'cause it can be used indefinitely and picks up upgrade material without having to go pick it up. What makes it funny is that upgrading it makes you get more points per pick up, making it so that waking towards them grants you less than spamming the radar button. Curious. Time Shift is even funnier. When you pick up crystal weapons a "12:00" timer appears on top of them, signifying that 12 hours need to pass before you can pick it up again. The game is about 4:30 hours long. And the game is very linear, so there's no going back. That timer is nothing but a weird form of world building, showing that you need to use time-shift to pick up more weapons. It's quite silly!

 Something I noticed is that the game uses a 'randomly generated dungeon floor' way too many times. Every room and corridor is recycled and looks the same, and it feels so out of place considering it's usually a single floor long and happens midway through most chapters. You get to go through three of these before the final boss.

 I found it rather disappointing that there's no New Game Plus+, as it would've been nice to replay the game with all my upgrades intact. The game's difficulty is alright, the hardest part about the game are the bosses, and it's just a matter of learning when to dodge as they follow pretty straight-forward patterns.

 Ultra Age was a fun hack-and-slash. Weapon movesets could be a bit more extensive, it could use more enemy variety and, well, more levels, but considering its budget... they churned out something pretty good.

 7.5

Game #1138: Marsupilami: Hoobadventure

  Is it a Monkey? Is it a leopard?!

 I've never been much of a fan of the original TV show, so I don't know why I felt like buying Marsupilami Hoobadventure, but I'm glad I did. It may not look like it, but it's a Donkey Kong Country Returns clone, and a pretty competent one at that!

 You can play as any of three different Marsupilami, but the difference is only skin-deep as all three are pretty much identical. They can run, jump, punch, somersault-attack, ground pound and, just like Donkey Kong, turn their somersault-attack into a long-jump, the latter one feels pretty much identical to DK's, even being able to pull it off shortly after running-on-air. Sometimes, the Marsupilami will have to use their long tales to hang onto moving rings or disappearing rings, or maybe, to reach pelicans that work like DK's shooting barrels. It's a decent set of abilities, and they are robust enough to keep the game entertaining, as the challenges are fairly varied. There are three difficulty settings: Infinite hitpoints, three-hitpoints and one-hitpoint. 

 The game has about 28 total stages, divided in three different types: Adventure, Dojo and Bosses. Adventure stages are your basic left-to-right affairs, they have 5 feathers to collect and a hidden challenge room to find. Dojo stages are longer-but-easier challenge rooms, in which you must go through rings while avoiding red shapes under a time limit. There are three boss stages, and they are like Adventure stages but on auto-scroll. Challenge Rooms and Dojo stages, upon clearance, reward you with tickets that open up bonus stages in which you can collect a ton of fruit and thus earn a lot of extra lives. Feathers unlock optional levels. Upon beating a stage you unlock its time trial mode, which is identical but you are just trying to finish it faster.

 The difficulty is just right.... up until the final two stages. The final boss is brutal, but the previous stage, thankfully an optional, unlockable one is even harder. The difficulty spike is not even funny. On another note, the performance on Switch is... a bit sloppy. A game this rudimentary shouldn't be having so many dips, and yet here we are. It's completely playable, but sometimes it's hard to justify the dips as the visual don't look very taxing on the system. Heck, the game has a hard time keeping it at 30 most of the time. Thirty!

 Switch performance aside, I'd say that the game's biggest problem is the lack of rewards. The game is fun, but why am I collecting the feathers? There are about 89 total feathers, but the third, and last, optional level only requires 65. Why should I bother finding every Challenge Room if all I get is a ticket for the bonus levels? Why shouldn't I play the game on the easiest setting? Why should I even bother with Time Trials? Honestly, even something as dumb as more alternate skins would've helped.

 While I ended the write up on a negative note, the game is fine. It plays well, has a nice amount of variety to keep stages fun and it feels like a really solid throwback to classic platforming games.

 7.0

Game #1137: Pokemon Shining Pearl

  Shine bright like... like a pearl?

 What not many people know is that I real1y liked the Pokemon Pearl, so I was looking forward to Pokemon Shining Pearl. And just like many people dislike the original Pearl and Diamond, when the remakes were announced another bunch of people were miffed by the chibi artstyle. I wasn't. It's Pokemon, I don't need realistic character models. Well, the game is here and... Just as with most modern Pokemon games and remakes, it could've been so much more. 

 For the most part, the game is a straight-up remake, to the point that no Pokemon beyond those available in the original Pearl/Diamond/Platinum can be caught, which is rather lame. TMs are limited, once again. which is super annoying, and HMs are now TMs so you can't even rely on the unlimited use Surf. HMs-turned-TMs can now be used through the Poketech even if none of your Pokemon know the ability, which is nice as now you don't need HM slaves. So, as per usual with Pokemon, one step forward, one step backward. That said, a single cave in the game requires Flash and Flash is the only environment move you do need a Pokemon to know and have to use through the menu and not the Poketech, which is baffling to say the least. Using the Poketech is a bit awkward, since it used to be displayed on the second screen on the DS, but now you can use the R-button to bring it up, and if you are playing in handheld mode, it can be used with the touch-screen.

 The Underground was changed, and just as the above issue, one step forward, one step backward. You can catch lots of Pokemon in here, and they are leveled to match your party, at least up to level 70, and is a fantastic way to catch Pokemon not available in the originals... but the Underground Bases were made super lame, as now you can only outfit them with statues. So boring. The minigame is back, it's as fun as it used to be, and just like it did years ago, I wasted hours hunting down loot... but best of all, it's touch-screen compatible! The game crashed once on me after I caught a Pokemon in the Underground, but it never happened again.

 They added small bits of customization, before starting the game you can pick any of four possible skin tone/hair color combinations for your character, and one city features 'styles' you can buy that changes your clothing. They are a bit expensive and you can't pick different clothing items to mix and match to your tastes, but it's better than nothing.

 We are back to random encounters, which wouldn't be too bad if only the encounter rate wasn't so ridiculously high. Sometimes, you may finish an encounter only for another one to trigger before your character takes a single step, it's ridiculous. Repels are pretty much a necessity thanks to this. Exp. Share is turned on by default and can't be turned off.... but, y'know, training your Pokemon one by one sounds like a waste of time, so... You know what? Despite how much I've complained about it before, I think it's OK... but I still think players should be able to turn it off in case they want something harder.

 The original games often got accused of being slow-paced. At the time, I never felt that was the case, but in this one? Jesus christ. They added lots of mid-battle flavor text and mini animations for when your friendship with a 'mon is high. This means lots of unnecessary padding in battles. Do I really need a line of text saying that my 'mon is waiting for instructions? Why the hell does a tiny heart have to pop over their head between attacks? Jesus, it's so annoying and it makes battles go on forever. It made it so that playing the game was better when I was doing something else so as not to notice how long battles were dragging on. And the Underground rewards? After the mining mini-game, the rewards pop up one by one. Why? I know what I found, I don't need this summary and I don't need each item to pop up one by one. Honestly, I don't understand these design choices at all.

 But even better, Nintendo has been super dumb with their games lately, turning them into physical/digital hybrids. This game is no exception. Want an intro movie and intro screen? You gotta download the patch. Want the bonus legendaries? Patch the game. Want the battle zone and figure out what happened with Barry? You gotta patch the game. Nintendo, what the hell? You used to be the good ones.

 Pokemon Shining Pearl is yet another Pokemon entry that feels like half of the game it should've been. At this point it feels like GameFreak is barely even trying. The game is still decent, mind you, but with each entry I feel less and less compelled to play the next one.

 6.5

Game #1136: Dragon Ball Z - Battle of Z

  The title is missing one Z, 'cause it's puttin' me to sleep.

 Dragon Ball Z Densetsu is one of my favorite Dragon Ball Z games, so I was hype as soon as I discovered Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z would have four on four battles. I really liked the demo, but then the reviews came out and... it wasn't pretty, so I've avoided the game all those years. I did well.

 The concept is brilliant, you create a team of four characters from the world of DBZ and fight other teams. You can customize characters from their colors, which is really fun even if some colors(Hair, Skin) are off the table, and then you can equip cards to make them stronger. But that's about it.

 First of all, no offline multiplayer, no VS, no Co-op, so if you're playing by yourself, the annoying story mode is all you get. There's not even Free Battle VS the CPU. Look, the character roster is fine.... except that Vegetto is DLC, which is incredibly stupid, particularly since characters are quite simple when it comes to movesets and animations.

 The Story mode follows a truncated version of the story, which is fine, but some stages have some weird limitations. You can't use Future Trunks outside the Cell Games, or Adult Gohan before the Buu saga, or Villains in main story chapters.... But you can make a team of four identical Gokus? Or a team made up of all forms of Vegeta? It makes no sense. You can lift these stupid limitations if you finish every missions, however. It's still annoying anyways, as it's a game about creating a team of characters and customizing them, but the game, which barely follows the game's plot, forces you to use certain characters but places somewhat arbitrary rules? Not  good.

 The Story Mode is incredibly annoying. Enemies are incredibly overpowered, encouraging you to grind for better cards to enhance your characters with. In particular, enemies have a lot of Super Armor and will just decide to teleport out of your combos just because they can. Or peter you with seemingly endless projectiles as you try to approach them. And when they are low on health, they love spamming their super moves, something you can't do as you have an actual energy gauge. There aren't a lot of defensive options, so as soon as you get caught in a combo you'll get wrecked. 

 But that's only part of the problem, the biggest problem is that the AI is as dumb as bricks. First of all, the AI levels up per character, so as soon as the game forces you to pick other characters you'll return to low-level AIs, but even at their highest... they are still awful. They will never, EVER prioritize reviving you, costing you continues. It's particularly bad when they hang close to you doing NOTHING but staying still as the counter reaches 0 and you have to use a continue.

 A lot of people gave up on the game in the Cell Tournament, I almost did too. You are fighting a SINGLE AI opponent, and even then, the CPU will find ways to die and not revive you. It's so egregious, there are four of you, and not ONE of them will decide to go revive you, instead just hang around doing absolutely nothing. It was a harrowing experience, I must've wasted an hour on this single stage.

 And it sucks, because the gameplay reminded me so much of Legends. You have a single attack button, and a weak projectile button. You fly around and hit enemies to get Ki, which can then be used for pursuit attacks, strong beams or one of two special moves. As you land attacks, specially team pursuit combos, you'll fill the momentum gauge, this one never goes down and as it increases your maximum Ki goes up, eventually granting you access to your super moves, and increasing the amount of hits on your attack combo. I liked this system a lot, while it's super basic, it's enough for the more chaotic 4 on 4 battles. And in the early stages of the game, before they got super cheap, I was enjoying the game.

 I found the game's mechanics to be more than satisfactory, but there's no local multiplayer and, for a single player, nothing beyond the story missions. Story missions that are stacked against you, with horrible AI Companions and incredibly cheap opposition. It's not a fun game, but what really sucks... is that it could've been.

 2.5

Game #1135: Kena - Bridge of Spirits

 Somebody forgot to call the ghostbusters.

 Ever since it was first announced, Kena: Bridge of Spirits looked like a total stunner, not unlike something that could've easily come out of Pixar. While the game looks gorgeous, it's scope is much smaller, feeling more like something that could've come out of the PS2 or PS3, and I say that as a good thing.

 You play as the eponymous Kena, a girl that has the job of helping spirits move on. You're not told much about why she is where she is, how her powers came to be, you just start the game inside a cave, get to an abandoned, corrupted village and start mingling with spirits. I liked this approach, the game tells you just exactly what you need to know, when you need to know. The graphics makes the story-telling even more inviting, that said, maybe I was enjoying exploring too much, but I felt as if cutscenes sometimes took forever, and I just wanted to get right back into the action. Were they slow-paced? Was I'm just enjoying the game too much? I'm not sure!

 The game has two main components, exploration and combat. While you are free to backtrack anywhere, to search for more collectibles, the game itself is fairly linear. It's a rather pleasant affair, as exploration will reward with more Rots, tiny spirits that aid Kena in combat, hats for these Rots, experience points or meditation spots to increase your health. It's interesting because as you progress through the game you'll get new abilities that will work for either combat or puzzle solving. The bow and arrow is self explanatory, but it's also used to hit environmental stuff to trigger puzzles or levels, the bombs work as an offensive tool... or to make rocks float and turn into platforms, and there's the underutilized dash that is used to cross through gateways or hit stuff. It's not necessarily like a Metroidvania because the tools you get will help you going forward, as you can get most of the stuff in an area once you get the area's ability. You get the bomb in the game's second main area, but you could get every collectible, sans the ones in the game's main hub, before that area just with the bow, and so on.

 As previously mentioned, the game is gorgeous, which is one of the reasons it's so inviting to explore this very green, lush forests. The game has about 9 different areas, and only 7 of them have collectibles, so it's not overwhelming. Once enemies are defeated they don't respawn, ever, so you won't be annoyed by enemy encounters and can just focus on finding suspicious areas in which collectibles might be hidden. Since the game is rather small, every areas feels dense with stuff to find. Most of the puzzles feel fair and are not overly complex, sans for that one altar-order puzzle, geeze.

 The other part of the game is the combat, and that part isn't so much fun. Kena has a weak four-hit combo tied to R1, a stronger attack on R2, blocks with L1, can roll with O and, well, can use her tools like the bow and bombs. My issues with combat are plenty, for instance, the timing for the parry and roll are too precise. Roll to early and the enemy attack will track you. The problem with the parry is bigger, since you are never told of the parry, and since Kena's block involves her entering a protective bubble... it's hard and not explained how you should time the parry. Is it before the attack would hit the bubble or does it only depend on your L1 press? It depends on the latter, but you're not told or shown. Enemies have way too much health, particularly bosses. It feels like you are waiting for your chance to deal minuscule damage most of the time. I got so bored during the first boss that I lowered the difficulty and never looked back. Enemies were still soaking up damage, but at least in this mode so was I. And it's just boring. I wish I had gotten the Rot Hammer upgrade earlier as it's the damage boost I was looking for.

 Properly landing hits rewards you with Rot energy, "Courage", which can be use to enhance some attacks with your rots. You can call on your rots to "stun" enemies, but they'll take little damage and just start swinging widely, which is useful once you learned how to parry, but even the parry counter attack deals little damage. All in all, it's very unrewarding and slow paced. I didn't enjoy this game's combat very much.

 In the end, I think in the easiest difficulty setting I was able to tolerate the combat, which was welcome, as everything else about the game was just fun. Kena was a great first effort for the studio. From its small scope, to the more linear game design and simple gameplay... it feels like a game from another era, and that's just great as it focus on what matters and not the fluff.

 7.5

Game #1134: Granblue Fantasy Versus

 More anime, more problems.

 Well, back in the PS2 era ArkSys was known for making fighters out of other people's franchises in their own signature style, for example, both Hokuto no Ken and Sengoku Basara got theirs, although, sadly, they never made it outside Japan. Granblue Fantasy Versus is their latest foray into turning somebody else's work into a fighting game, but using their Xrd style.

 Yeah, the game is gorgeous, with fantastic 3-D models that look like 2-D sprites. These models are, detail-wise, somewhere between Xrd and Strive, so they are pretty.... although, on the flip-side, the roster is a measly 11 character small, which is kinda pathetic. Modes include the usual suspects: VS, Arcade, Training and ArkSys' trademark Mission training, which is sort-of like a tutorial but more involved. Then there's RPG mode, which is the best Single Player content they have ever included in their fighting games. Basically, you take part in about 40 missions, some which play more like a very simple  beat'em up instead of a fighter, and you level up your characters, obtain weapons(Some which can change how the character weapon looks, which once found, can be change in the other modes), upgrade weapons and equip support abilities to use in battle. It's... it's actually really good, the most fun I've had since they've done fighting games.

 The combat system is a bit too slow and simple for my tastes. The basics are are alright, three attack buttons(Light, medium, strong) as well as a button that does something different for every character. It's not as deep as Blazblue, but, for instance, Gran gets a chargeable slash, Percival gets a grab, Zeta gets a mashable stab, etc. Of course, being a modern ArkSys game, auto-combos are in, but they are three-hit long and don't end in a special or super move. Special moves run on cooldown, which is... weird. There are simplified inputs, by pressing R1+a direction on the pad, or technical commands, like the quarter-circle forward input, that makes the cooldown slightly shorter. Rounding up the mechanics is the R2 button, which can be used to block, or by pressing forward or downward, dodge incoming attacks.

 The basic combat mechanics I enjoyed, but this is definitely a game that rewards patience and moves a bit more slowly than I would've liked. Combos feel mundane and unexciting considering how the cooldown mechanic works. I don't know, I would've much preferred something a bit faster and a bit more involved.

 While I wouldn't say the fighting is as fun or as exciting as their other fighting games, I must commend ArkSys on the Single Player mode, which shows they can try something different and succeed at it. It's not an noninteractive, lame movie like in Guilty Gear Xrd/Sign, an impenetrable visual-novel style series of fights, like Persona or as densely boring and uneventful as Dragon Ball's boards. So yeah, I think it's a decent package, but an unimpressive fighting game.

 7.0