Tales of Xillia....

 That last boss... That last dungeon...
 What a disappointment.
 "Tales of", at least the mothership titles, tend to have long and complicated last dungeons.... Tales of Xillia didn't. It was as simple, straight-forward and short as it gets. And to top it all off? The last boss was such a letdown. Gaius simply powered up, and you had to beat them... Kinda reminiscent of Richter from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, and we all know how I feel about that one(Spoilers: I hate it. At least for the initial 30-40 hours).
 The ending was satisfying though, however, that last stretch felt so... so... rushed maybe? Looking back, dungeons did were on the simpler side, but still... Ah well, I'm gonna tackle the secret dungeon, maybe this one picks up the slack...

Archview #57: Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition

 Portables have come a long way....

 My first portable system was a Gameboy Color, and ever since I've been very fond of portable gaming, probably having a lot to do with me liking 2D games. Regardless, back then we got portable games that shared the name of a console game, but were nothing alike. Turok 2, for example, was a great FPS on the N64, yet it was an action-adventure side-scroller on the Gameboy Color. By the time the Gameboy Advance rolled in, the trend was still going on. One of my favorite GBA games is Street Fighter Alpha 3: Upper. A lot of sacrifices had to be made, it only had 4 buttons for example, but I liked the end product. Where am I going with all this? Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is as faithful as it gets.
 As with Street Fighter IV, I won't describe the whole game, but I will mention what makes this port so good without delving into the finer linings of it's mechanics. For starters, keep in mind that this is chocolate SFIV, just the first update. This is before Arcade Edition(No Yun, Yang, Oni or Evil Ryu) and therefore, before Arcade Edition 2012, and with Ultra Street Fighter IV on the horizon, this is a very outdated version of the game.

 Every mode, Arcade, Versus, Training, Online(With less features though), Challenge, Car destruction and Barrel destruction made it in. The challenges where simplified, which makes sense since the 3DS is not the best tool when it comes to fighting games. There's also a new figure collecting mode, where you use points earned through normal gameplay on Slots. These figures are also part of the Spot Pass features, which I totally couldn't use(Welcome to my world), so I can't comment too much on them. There's a new optional camera angle that makes the most of the 3D features, but it's just a novelty. The game is also as complete as it gets, it has every cutscene, ending, intro and rival movies intact, plus, every character gets every costume that was available at the time(1 for the newcomers, 2 for the vanilla cast). However, one thing that it's missing is the dual audio option, you only get English dubs and that's it, it's not too bad, but voices aren't synched to the models, so it might look a bit odd.
 The first time I launched the game, it felt slower or something. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the movement fell odd. Turns out you can't run the game at 60 FPS unless you completely turn off the 3D option at the main menu. While the 3D is alright and is one feature the console version doesn't have, I'd rather have the game at 60 FPS. Graphically, the stages were the most affected. There's no animations whatsoever, crowds are static, which at first is a bit off-putting, but it wears off pretty soon. A lot of background objects are now flat, it hardly affects gameplay, but it's easy to notice when the camera moves around during intros and winposes, hardly a dealbreaker. Models, however, look fantastic, while there's a lot of clipping through clothes(Figure the 3DS can't handle their phyrics), it's not too bad, as the models themselves look very detailed.

 The 3DS was not made for fighters. The game tries to remedy that by offering four shortcuts on the bottom screen. It actually works pretty well, and offers some advantages to charge characters, as it means not having to charge that Sonic Boom. Keep in mind that you will have to set up the controls for every character indivually, which is annoying when you want Hard Punch to be R and Roundhouse to be L. There's 35 characters after all.
 As a whole, it's a fantastic package. They even managed to fit trophies/achievements in, and while they are even more useless than their console counterparts, they are still here. While I prefer Tekken's gameplay, as a package, there's no going wrong with Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition, you get an almost console-perfect port, whose only real fault is the graphics, on the go.
 9 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: Blazblue: Continuum Shift II

 Not as bad as they say, not as good as it could...

 I've always been a fan of Guilty Gear, and while Blazblue never clicked with me as GG did, I could still appreciate it for what it was. Well, I had a blast with Guilty Gear X on the Gameboy Advance, a port a lot of people like to put on blast. Not me. I loved the hell out of that game, as gimped as it was. Where am I going? Once again I am presented with a gimped port of an Arksys fighter... and once again, I like it.

 Sure, the graphics are much simpler. The sound is really bad(Remember how GGX Advance sounded like a Gameboy Color game?). There's quite a bit of slowdown too... yet I can still see myself having fun on the long run with this game. What little I played, I like, mostly due to how good Blazblue is in itself. The simpler sprites are also kinda charming, although the slowdown is not welcome at all. The sound effects are hilariously bad, punches sound like whiffed hits.

 So yeah, that's it. Don't wanna give too much away before the Archview, heh. Speaking of Archviews, I finished SSFIV:3DE, so I will probably write it after I wake up. I never wrote part 2 of my  First Impressions on Tales of Xillia, but all that needs to be said is that it's a pretty good game, and I'm liking the combat a tiny bit more than Graces. And that means a lot.

First Archimpressions part 1: Tales of Xillia

 YOU CAN MOVE THE CAMERA.

 I've put less than an hour in the game, hey time constraints, so I didn't get to battle, hence part 1. So very very very first impressions? It feels like Graces, but better, and that's a really good thing. For starters, you can move the camera, and it feels good, actually, it's a bit loose, but I didn't mind too much. Movement also feels similar to Graces, and so does costume/accessory switching. I didn't check if titles worked the same, but I'm betting yes.
 Visually it's... it's not all that better than Graces. Characters have individual fingers now, which is cool. Still, something about the models rub me the wrong way, maybe their emotionless faces and their realistic looking hands coming from simpler arms? I dunno. Music.... I only heard one track, but it sounded really nice, and very different from Graces. Graces musical pieces felt like previous Tales games I've played, so this sounding different is pretty nice. Voice acting so far is... decent, there hasn't been a whole lot of situations or voiced scenes, but they've been alright. I wasn't too fond of Milla's voice, but I heard very little of her.
 I dunno, I wanna play more, I'll try to sneak some Xillia during the month.

Month Overview: Game of September

 Games completed in September:
 Street Fighter IV                                     7
 Zone of the Enders HD Collection          10
 Dragon Ball Budokai HD Collection        7
 Tales of Graces F                                    8
 Dynasty Warriors 2                                 4
 Forever Kingdom                                    5
 Genji: Days of the Blade                          5

 Eh... Well, at least I got to revisit Zone of the Enders 2 and remind myself why I loved it so much. Genji 2 wasn't really a letdown since I knew how mediocre it was. Forever Kingdom on the other hand.... I knew Evergrace wasn't too good, since I had played it, but for some reason I expected something really good out of FK(In the coffee?). Dynasty Warriors 2 was also awful, I loved it as a 11 year old boy, but after playing the newer installments, there's no going back. Ever.

 Game of the Month:

 I could've gone with ZoE 2, I could. But I knew that game, as good as it was, I was already familiar with it. Tales of Graces  however, was something completely new. I spent over 60 hours on this little game, and grew closer to it's cast of characters. Hubert interested me the most, and after Richard became playable, all the skits became hilariously good. The Mask of Barona, need I say more? The gameplay was pretty good too, I wasn't too fond of the CC, but it wasn't bad, simply not my cup of tea.


 Runner-up:

 I played ZoE 2 three times from beginning to end. And I loved every second of each. That's how good ZoE 2 is, that's how well it has aged. Since this is the HD Collection, you also get ZoE 1, which isn't even half as good as 2, but it's there, so why complain? I don't know how bad it was before the patch, but after the patch it was as good as it needed to be.

First ArchImpressions: Dynasty Warriors 4

 "Dynasty Warriors 2 if Dynasty Warriors 2 had aged well" sums this up pretty nicely

 Yeah, it's pretty decent. Actually, two of the issues I had with 2 are still here, namely, how your attacks focus on one soldier at random, when hitting multiple targets, and the fact that you have little control over the camera.  Still, Enemy Officers no longer get power ups every single time they fall, and the visual presentations is quite pretty actually, so there's that.
 The gameplay also had it's first sightings of RPG elements, well, I haven't played DW 3 yet, so I might be wrong on that, heh. I just cleared the game with Xiahou Dun, unlocking every Wei character in the process, and I had fun. Some issues from DW2 remain, but they never bothered me in the past(Back when I still adored DW2 and before getting to play modern Warriors games, so maybe they aren't real flaws) and they didn't get in the way of my enjoyment of this entry.

Archview #56: Genji: Days of the Blade

 It could... it should've been so much more.

 Genji: Days of the Blade is the sequel to the sleeper hit Genji: Dawn of the Samurai on the PS2. While DotS brought an end to the PS2 era, DotB brought the start to the PS3 era, and it was not a bright new day. I won't be comparing both games, as DotS is the superior game by far, however, it's hard to believe how they could've screwed up what worked so well before.
 DotB picks up a couple of years after the events of DotS, and it's not necesary to have played it before as there is a small recap at the start of the game and there's not much you need to know beforehand. As it turn out, the Heishi clan is still alive and kicking, and now they got their hands on a great new power, the Mashogane, who turns men into rampaging demons. It's up to Yoshitsune, the hero from the previous game, Benkei, his trusty sidekick, Shizuka, the priestess who yet again takes up arms and now a playable character plus Buzon, a god who inhabits the body of a past foe, to stop the Heishi, as all four of them wield the Amahagane, a powerful crystal that grant them superhuman abilities.

 Gameplay is very straightforward, you pummel your enemies, go from point A to point B, rinse and repeat. There's an occasional puzzle every now and then, but nothing too complex. Besides the standard Weak and Strong attacks, characters can use Kamui, when they've charge the Kamui bar, that puts you into a timed-press-the-button minigame, if you don't mess up, you will deal massive damage to bosses and kill most enemies. Also, if you press any attack button right before taking a hit, you will counter with an extremely powerful attack. By pushing the right analog stick in any direction, the character will dodge, gaining a couple of invincibility seconds.
 As previously stated, there are four playable characters, and you can switch to any of them at any time, and while they each have their own life bars and Kamui bars, death for one means loading up your latest savefile. It actually makes sense, since each character has unique enviromental skills that would make finishing a stage impossible if you lost the appropriate character. Each character can also collect different weapons, and they each change their basic Weak attack combo. To be honest, most movesets are really awkward, every character is better off keeping their first weapon, which ends up having the most useful and adaptable basic combo, and using their last weapon as back up, all other weapons feel too awkward. Speaking of awkward, every character plays very differently from each other: Yoshitsune is very basic and easy to play, Shizuka is faster and deals less damage, but has a larger area of effect. Benkei has no combos, but deals knockback and has super armor on his basic moves and Buzon is very weird, but his sidesteps actually modify his basic attacks into more normal combos. Needless to say, you will probably play as Yoshitsune the most, with Benkei when you need more oomph.

 There's two different currencies in the game: Amahagane and Mashogane. Amahagane is hidden throught each level, your character will start emiting a light when close by, and if you hit it's hiding place, you will get a piece of it. Mashogane is dropped by certain enemies. Amahagane is used to increase a characters HP or Kamui gauge, while Mashogane is used to enhance their weapons.
 The worst thing about the game, by far, is it's awful camera. You can't control it at all, but rest assured that it will pick the worst angles possible. Many a times, you will find yourself walking towards the camera, and not just when backtracking! If you want to explore, you will have to guide yourself with the minimap, as the camera is no help. It's so awful, that a lot of times you won't see the enemies unless you reposition yourself and try to force the enemy into the camera. And Genji is a challenging game, the camera is just aggravating. The game also has platforming.... bad camera and plataforming? There's only one way this can end... and it's bad. Not to mention that movement and jumps feel very floaty, it's just an all-around bad combination. There's this chapter in particular that takes place inside a ship. There are many platforming sections, failing one means that you are dropped to a room full of enemies, and you must kill them all in order to open the door, and then you have to go through previous platforming sections. And every time you fall, you have to kill the enemies again and get through the first platforming section, just to get to the latter platforming section  where you fell from. Truly, truly, truly vexing.

 While I'm sure that at launch it was hailed as gorgeous, nowadays it looks average. Mind you, average this generation is pretty beautiful, but it's nothing special. Still, the animations are very lifelike and smooth, they are pretty neat to look at. However, the game as a whole feels pretty slow, many attacks, as cool as they look, also seem to lack oomph behind them, Shizuka's in particular. Stages look beautiful though, but they are a bit boring. Still, a special mention is deserved to the boats level. It's one of the most gorgeous levels I have ever played. You must travel from boat to boat through a golden sea and yellow sky, it's quite the sight.
 The music is fantastic, it's very Japanese and appropriate, while still feeling a bit modern. It sets up the mood pretty nicely, and some tunes are memorable thanks to how haunting they are! Voice acting on the other hand... It's not necessarily bad, but it's not good either. Voice Actors have a very noticeable accent, and while it's sorta fitting, since it's a very Japanese game, it's also a bit jarring. Plus, the English subtitles don't match the English voice acting... and yes, you can switch to Japanese audio, which I highly recommend you do.

 The game lasts around 8 hours, which is pretty respectable for this kind game( And hey, it's prequel was really short), but once you are done, there's nothing else to do, but the game is challenging, so you might actually have to retry some parts until you get them right. The game is very linear too, so no backtracking to previous levels.
 All in all, it's not awful, I've certainly played worse(Xenosaga 2...), but it's not good either. The camera issues are a dealbreaker, they also shoehorned some needless platforming sections, while the game is at it's finest when it's just brawling. Sadly, even to people that enjoyed Genji on the PS2, this game is a tough sell.
 5 out of 10.