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

  Two words, one name: Rock Howard.    

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

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

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

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

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

 8.5

Game #1078: No More Heroes III

  Seems there was one more hero left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 8.5

Game #1077: [Prototype]

  So... less than a beta?

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

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

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

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

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

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

 9.0

Game #1076: Damnation

 Well, I'll be damned....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 4.0

Game #1075: Heavenly Sword

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 5.0

Game #1074: Borderlands - The Handsome Collection

 Handsome is a loaded term. 

 I've covered Borderlands 2 so many times before that Basically, this game includes Borderlands 2 and the awful Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, why Borderlands 1 isn't here is beyond me, probably just laziness. You could argue that Handsome Jack plays no part in Borderlands 1, but I'd argue that Borderlands 2 script retcons it into BL1 being all part of Jack's plan.

 Well, firstly, the good news, unlike the PS3 releases, Borderlands 2 and all of its copious amounts of DLC are a single install. Praise the gods. That said, it doesn't include the Lilith DLC that was released alongside Borderlands 3, plus, the game is missing some of the Pre-Sequel's DLC, but both can be gotten by downloading the free patches... provided anyone cares about the Pre-Sequel.

 I hoped that this release would look as good as BL 2 on PC could look, with all the fancy physic and liquid effects... but that is not the case. This is just a sharper looking version of the PS3 releases, and they run on 60FPs which is very nice, but nothing game changing. Did I like the smooth framerate? Yeah. And the loading times are very brief, but... I expected something more. 

 Every time I played Borderlands 2 I did so as Axton, as he is the guy that best matches my style. I wanted something different, and since I always liked melee... I went with Zer0. It was a mistake. Look, I had fun, it is Borderlands 2, I love the game, but... I got frustrated so many times. His unique skill makes him invisible for five seconds. That's it. He was super squishy, and one of his skill trees focuses on Sniper rifles, which I hate, so it was basically a non-option for me. Oh so many times I had wished I was playing as Axton instead. Even with all the melee buffs I got, even though I got a ton of damage enhancements, such as by switching damage source or hitting enemies with a melee attack I still felt super weak and felt like my unique skill amounted to nothing.... If I had played BL2 as Zer0 my first time around I doubt this game would've made it into my favorites of all time... so, y'know, think carefully before you pick a character.

 Overall? It's a good rerelease, it's very convenient too since both games are a single install, but I would've liked to see more graphical improvements. Also, I'm never playing as Zer0 again.

 9.0

Game #1073: Onechanbara ZII Chaos

 Ain't no bikini small enough. 

 Well, considering I gave Senran Kagura a try I decided I'd do the same with Onechanbara, particularly because I found Onechanbara ZII Chaos day 1 edition super cheap. Well.. there are some things I liked about this zombie-slaying beat'em up, as well as a few I didn't, but I was positively surprised, for the most part.

 There are two main modes of play, Story Mode, which is a very linear affair and Mission Mode, made up of 40 challenges. There's a practice mode, which is an interesting addition as it shows you the correct timing for your combo-button presses, as well as a customization mode. Spoilers, most costumes and pretty much every hairstyle are paid DLC, so it's super basic. And 70% of the costumes are fanservicey, so no getting around that silly bikini. Actually, I equipped both bikini sisters with the same costumes as their more clothed sisters. I also took off their hats because they looked dumb.

 I gave the story a try, I really did, but the game has the same budget as Scarlet Nexus, so 80% of the cutscenes are told through comic-book style panels. I ended up skipping everything and anything that wasn't a proper cutscene. I played the game with the English dub and the lip-synch was non-existent, and characters moved their mouth so little I'm betting the original Japanese audio isn't any better.

 On the other hand, I did like the in-game presentation. The graphics aren't particularly great, but I'll admit they were pretty meticulous with all four girls, as you can even notice their ribs! The game looks and plays like an Arcade game, as it's super colorful and super simple, but the in-game action oozes style. You can tag-in and tag-out any of the four playable characters at pretty much any time, even mid combo or mid-air combo, heck, you can unleash some powerful tag moves if you tag-in another character at the right time. Basic combat is super simple, you just mash square and triangle with the occasional X input to chase an enemy into the air for good measure. Every character has two weapon styles and you can also swap style mid-combo. Your weapons will slowly get dirtied with blood, dealing less damage and becoming slower, so you must either perform perfectly timed combos, which was impossible for me, or find a window of opportunity to tap L1 and refresh your weapon. Lastly, you have super moves and super forms. Each girl has three super moves and three levels of each, and you can use them by spending energy you stock by getting combos, while the Super meter slowly builds as you defeat enemies and pressing L3+R3 lets you temporarily enter a super move that makes you super strong, constantly builds the Super Attack meter but slowly saps your health away.

 It's not the deepest combat system ever made, and I feel like enemies can soak up too much damage at first, to the point I was getting hand cramps, something I didn't even suffer when I played Dynasty Warriors or Devil May Cry. The lock-on system is total garbage, the girls are reduced to a walk and the lock-on loves aiming towards enemies BEHIND gates you can't destroy until every monster inside has been killed, the cherry on top is that you must press L3 to toggle between targets, so it's anyone's guess who you'll get next. Some bosses require touchpad input QTEs, which aren't too bad, but the game NEVER, EVER tells you what the blue arrows on the screen mean, so either check the instruction booklet or guess, I guess.

 Something I did like a lot was just how many moves and weapons you can purchase with in-game currency. Most weapons are pretty expensive, but you'll be able to get at least a couple of ultimate weapons during the course of the story mode, and even more stuff if you play the missions that reward you with a ton of points.

 It's dumb and it's not super fun, but it's not completely disastrous. While combat isn't the deepest thing ever I think there's enough visual flair to keep players interested, and it's the only thing that will as the story is boring and uninteresting. The customization mode could've been an interesting addition, but most costumes are purely fanservice, and most of the stuff that is worth a damn must be paid for, as there are, what, 8 costumes total you can use, four of them being their defaults. Basically, I understand why weaboos like these games, but definitely not for me. I feel like I could enjoy these games if they did away with the fanservice, I do.

 6.0