Now Playing: Soul Reaver 2

 Huh, so we are abandoning the 'Legacy of Kain' moniker?

 I-I'm amazed. From the moment you fire up the game, the improvements are huge and notorious. The first thing you are treated to is a reimagining of  Soul Reaver 1's ending, and then... let's see... The camera, that used to be tied to R2 and L2, is now turned with the right analog stick. Genius. I remember whining about how little information it gave you to orient yourself, not anymore. Not only do you get a compass, which I suggested, but you also get a map, which I also suggested. And the framerate? Silky smooth. With new technology, also comes better graphics, and Nosgoth has never looked better(Well, maybe Blood Omen 2 looks slightly better, but it came after this one), it's very colorful, and the draw distance? You can see EVERYTHING. Remember in Soul Reaver 1 how short the draw distance was? That's a thing of the past.

 If I had one thing to complain about... it'd be that they change how the Reaver works. The previous game rewarded you with it if you did good in combat... now you can use it at any time, but you need to put it in 'cooldown' unless you want it to zap your HP constantly, plus, now the Reaver doesn't sustain your material form, so back to constantly feeding off souls. I dunno, it worked so well on the previous game, why fix what ain't broken? Also, and this is a nitpick, the graphics reek of early PS2, with slightly ugly models, and some wonky animations. The environments fare much, much better though.

 As a side-note, I know for sure that I never got out of the Sarafan Stronghold when I was younger, how do I know that? I don't remember ever getting out of it! I'm pretty sure it has to do with me not knowing how to save the game, probably, since that puzzled me at first. Turns out you can't save the game after well 30-40 minutes into the game. I'm not kidding. Which reminds me, they also changed how you save your game, instead of 'save anywhere', it uses save points, and they seem to be slightly too far apart from each other, but then again, I only came across two of them, so I might be wrong.

 What else can I say? I am completely enthralled by the game. I love the script, love the dialogue and love the delivery. I'm fully hooked by the lore of the series, and can't wait to see how it unfolds... barring the fact that I did finish Defiance back in the day that is.

Review #228: Uncharted - Golden Abyss

 More like 'Unswiped', am I right?

 So, Sony launched the new Vita, and it needed something to sell it, and something that would showcase it's capabilities.  Uncharted Golden Abyss was the answer to both questions(were they even questions?), the 'Uncharted' brand is easily a system seller, and Golden Abyss uses about every single feature of the Vita.

 Golden Abyss takes place before the very first Uncharted, which is probably for the best, and has Nathan teaming up with Sully as well as newcomers Marisa Chase and Dante. The plot is... well, it's your typical Uncharted game, there's a mystery surrounding ancient stuff, Nate is in it for the money at first and then it gets personal. The major villain is caricaturesque, as per usual, but it's the dialogue and the interaction with the supporting cast that really makes Uncharted, well, Uncharted. The dialogue between Nate and Sully is pure gold, and it's great to see Sully before he got 'too old for this stuff', Chase and Dante's is full of colorful banter while Dante and Nate keep taking jabs at each other. Needless to say, the writing for the dialogues is top-notch, up to the series standards, while the plot itself... well, it's your typical Uncharted plot, and as I said before, it's hard to break away from the formula when your main character is supposed to be an explorer.

 With Uncharted on the Vita you get the usual third person shooting and platforming the series is known for. There's a fair amount of shooting segments, platforming segments and even a few puzzles here and there, whether you prefer the shooting or the platforming, I think there's enough here to satisfy both. Now then, there's a few things I liked and a few I disliked about this particular entry, both tied to the new buttonless controls. Every optional feature is OK in my book. You can aim with the right analog stick or by moving the Vita itself, and believe it or not, moving the Vita actually makes precision aiming a bit easier, to fine tune your aim after using the right analog stick. You can also swipe your finger across parkour obstacles to have Nate do them by themselves, it's amusing at first, but I stuck with the buttons for the most part. You can also tap on the back of the Vita to climb ropes, instead of using buttons, which I didn't care for, but it was optional, so I didn't mind. Another cool thing, is that the game has a ton of collectibles, and many of these have touch based mini-games. Like rotating and object and cleaning it by swiping it, or rubbing charcoal over paper, and even a couple of literal puzzles, in which you have to rotate and accommodate the pieces, which is cool, because they are optional. All in all, I'd say this is the Uncharted game with the most collectibles of them all.... but then again, Uncharted 1 and 2 rewarded you with points to unlock cheats, there's no such thing in this one!

 But then there's the mandatory gimmicks. While walking over planks, Nate will most likely lose his balance, requiring you to tilt the Vita sideways to regain it. It wouldn't be an Uncharted game if it didn't rework the melee, and on this fourth iteration, after pressing Square a bunch of times, a touch-based QTE will take place. This was annoying and I could've done without. Also, during some platforming sections Nate will lose his grip and... yes, Touch-based QTE. There's another segment, only one thankfully, that has Nate drop through falling rapids, and you have to move Nate by tilting the Vita. Then there's the much-talked about moment in which you have to hold the Vita against a light source to make letters appear on a parchment. Yeah, it's cute, but say you are on a car, at night, playing... now you can't advance in the game because there's no flippin' light source strong enough nearby! And grenades must be thrown by touching the screen, but this I can forgive since they probably run out of buttons, heh! I'm sure that some people won't mind all of these, but I did. This is supposed to be a handheld game, a game you should be able to play anywhere, but forcing you to tilt around the Vita like a dolt doesn't sound to me like something I'd want to do in public. Everything optional about touch controls is great, but when they become mandatory, that's an issue, at least as far as I'm concerned.

 As far as the game itself goes, it's a blast. It lasts between 8-10 hours, which makes it pretty lengthy. The set pieces aren't as amazing as, say Uncharted 2, but that's not to say that the game doesn't have exciting moments. A lot of the shoot outs are very intense, with some great level design. There's also some great platforming segments that keep the action going even though bullets aren't flying... most of the time. It also keeps the series' trademark bullet sponge enemies, makes you wonder how they can keep moving after having 5-6 bullets encrusted on their bodies! I also suffered a few moments were Nate just slipped out of my control into his death, which once again, kinda comes as a given with Uncharted games. One point of contention is that there's much extra stuff. All the collectibles are neat, and many have descriptions which tie up into the game's story, but there's no cheats, unlockables or multiplayer mode. As if I haven't made it clear, the game is pretty much in-line with the rest of the series, the scope may be a bit smaller, but it's as faithful to the franchise as possible.

 Golden Abyss is gorgeous, plenty of times I found myself, mouth agape, in awe at the beautiful environments and vistas. It's a beautiful game. While the textures aren't as great as Uncharted 1's, I'd say the character models look even better. The polygon count is definitely smaller, but at least they don't look as if they were made out of wax. Music and voice acting are up to the game's usual standards, it sounds just as good as any other Uncharted.

 The most surprising thing about Uncharted: Golden Abyss is that you wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't made by Naughty Dog if you weren't told so. Everything about the game reeks of quality, in which it matches the main entries of the series. That said, while I feel this is a great game... I also feel like it's not a good portable game. Tilting the console itself, or having to rely on a light source for that one moment just isn't my thing when it comes to a handheld. If I were to rank this one, it easily surpasses Uncharted 1(But then again, I disliked that one) and it almost reaches Uncharted 2.
 8.0 out of 10

Archile's Grab Bag: Turtle Month Confirmed Edition

  New package yadda yadda yadaa...

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Arcade Attack: This game's reception was a bit... bad, but I ain't gonna lie, it seems decent.

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I played a little bit of this one back in the day, it was fun, but nowhere neat as fun as the PS2 version.

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus: I think I actually gave this one a try as well, but it's so similar to the first one, on the outset, that I wouldn't remember clearly!

 Gravity Rush: The only Playstation Vita game worth having at the moment, or so they claim. It seems awesome.

 TMNT: Ah! I gave this one a go as well, the reviews were coming in and all were so good, that I just had to play it. I remember liking it, but I never got around playing as anybody but Raph, guess I didn't make much progress! Fun fact, finding this game Complete in Box is about 100 dollar hard. This one had a smashed box, but hey, it was only 20!

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I don't have much to say about this one! 'Nother day, 'nother TMNT game!

 Soul Reaver 2: Guess we are just gonna throw away the 'Legacy of Kain' moniker, huh. Yeah, it does say 'The Legacy of Kain series', but it doesn't count! Ah well, I'm looking forward to this one, I already skimmed through the insctruction booklet and it seems like they added a compass and more checkpoints, almost as if they had gone back to the past to see what I disliked about the first one. IT'S A GAME ABOUT TIME TRAVELLING AND I DID A JOKE ABOUT IT.













 And as if it were not clear enough, Turtle Month is happening again this November, and there's quite a bit of games planned for it....

Now Playing: Uncharted - Golden Abyss

 There's STILL uncharted territory, goddamn!

 It's good, IT'S GOOD. So, Soul Reaver 2 can't arrive soon enough, and Jeanne D'Arc kicked my butt(Mission 33, Roger's subconsciousness killed my spell caster), and I needed a break from studying and... and... well, Uncharted was laying by, so why not?!

 I'm on Chapter 3, and it's really good. Game looks gorgeous, the dialogue and voice acting are as sharp as always and it feels just like the Uncharted we know and love. They even changed the melee again, because changing how melee works is an Uncharted staple. This is, probably, my least favorite melee, as it involves swiping on the screen. Yipie. All the optional touch controls are fine, because they are optional, but I'm disliking the mandatory 'tilt to balance' and 'swipe to machete' moments in the game. I understand they wanted to showcase the Vita capabilities, but I could do without. To be fair, they aren't overly annoying, but if it was up to me, I would've taken them away.

 Still, it's a solid game so far.

Review #227: SoulCalibur Legends

 Because every fighting game needs an action spin-off.

 There comes a point in every fighting game franchise's life in which it needs an action game spin off. You've got Death by Degrees for Tekken, Virtua Fighter Quest for, well, Virtua Fighter, and Mythologies/Special Forces/Shaolin Monks for Mortal Kombat and Guilty Gear 2 for Guilty Gear, and then there's Legends for SoulCalibur.

 The story... is not worth it, on many fronts. First and foremost, even though it claims to tell the story between Soul Edge and SoulCalibur, the game is actually non-canon. An even if the developers didn't claim so, the fact that it contradicts many things from the numbered iterations would make any point you had in favor of this... loose retelling, void. Basically, it's a superfluous entry into the series that doesn't add anything to the franchise. But let's say you don't care, after all, what matters is that a game is fun to play, not that it has a good story(Unless it's an RPG or a visual novel, that is), is the story in this game worth getting into? No, it is not. The script is very poorly written, there's so much foreshadowing that it's impossible not to predict what's gonna happen. And you don't even get to feel smart about figuring it out, since the game is basically screaming the plot twists at the top of its lungs! It's also one of those Japanese games that want you to feel empathy and sorry for the villain... but you just can't help but laugh at how poorly written he is.

 This is a third person hack and slash, with the occasional puzzle every now and then, but it's solved by slashing stuff with your blades. You are allowed to take two characters into each stage, each with their own life bar and special gauge. You can swap characters at almost any time, which can be a life saver. First strike: The only way to attack is with motion controls, which means that precision is thrown out the window. And you will need precision if you want to make combos, as there's five different types of attacks: Upwards slice, downwards slice, left and right slashes and thrusting. You can adjust the sensitivity, and what attack you'd rather the sensor favor, which is a nice gesture, but you'll never get to a point where you can trust the game to read all of your moves correctly. And the saddest part about it? There is some depth to the combo system, you can juggle enemies, there's even some attack strings that change if you wait a little before your next input, but relying on motion controls means you won't get the most of it. Dodging is also tied to motion controls, the nunchuck more precisely. At the end of day, I opted to forgo dodging and rely on avoiding attacks by moving around or just blocking what can be blocked. It's a better alternative than hoping it reads your nunchuck input right in the heat of battle.

 Strike numero dos: The targeting system is flawed. Firstly, every time you kill an enemy and the reticule moves to another enemy, it takes a while for the camera to catch up to it. Even worse, you switch between enemies by tapping A... but sometimes you need to get closer to an enemy, even if it's inside your view, so that he becomes targetable. Strike three:The level design is atrocious. Levels are made up of tunnels that lead into bigger arenas, of which you can't exit until you slay every monster inside. Sure, the decor or the surroundings might look different, but it's the same design all the way through to the end. Every now and then there'll be simple death traps, but the game loves to place rolling boulders next to corners, so that it's impossible for you to see them coming until it's to late, since the camera is so bad. Very cheap.

 I may be out of strikes, but the game isn't out of flaws! There's only 8 different stages(tilesets, if you will), and you play them multiple times. The enemies may change, but the areas are the same, the puzzles are the same, although slightly altered every time you go through them. And then you reach chapter 5, which is halfway through the game, and you are to visit every single stage for the umpteenth time. And it gets better, you have to fight every single boss up to that point again, even better, they recycle their cutscenes. I'm not kidding. Some bosses are fought over 8 times, they may change their colors, but not their patterns.

 The game offers 7 different characters, while the back claims 'Play as your favorite characters', so, hopefully Siegfried, Taki, Sophitia, Astaroth, Mitsurugi or Ivy are among your favorites. The seventh character is the guest, Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia, I love Lloyd, so I approve of his inclusion... even if he uses Raphael's weapons. Ah, weapons! Each character gets 4 weapons, which you unlock by playing through the game, and, as far as I could tell, they are just cosmetic. Some of the latter weapons confer extra special attacks to the characters, but as far as damage and attacks go, they are the same. You can also strengthen your weapons by finding fire swords throughout each level, but the enhancements are negligible until you max them at level 3, in which you'll notice a slight damage increase. For what it's worth, all seven characters play differently, their speed and attacks are different, as well as the properties of most of their moves.

 After you are done with the game, you'll unlock New Game+, which allows you to retain your weapons and their levels. It took me about 6 hours to finish it, which is fair for this type of game, but I've heard of people taking up to 7-10 hours to finish it. Then there's a 2 player mode, 'Party mode', that has about 15 different 'quests'. Five of them are simple versus arenas, five of them are small co-operative stages, and the other 5 are 'collect more items'/'slay more enemies' competitions. It's a neat addition, although the frame rate takes a hit, but it's still playable. The game is definitely barebones. The length could've been just right, but most of the game is spent replaying the same stages, defeating the same bosses and enemies, so just 6 hours doesn't cut it in this case.

 Visuals have their ups and downs. The character models are top notch, playable characters and bosses all look great, enemies look pretty decent as well. The stages look good, but the poor level design makes them look dull and lifeless. I think if the assets would've been given a better architecture, the stages could've looked better. The music is phenomenal, which is a no brainer when you take into account that it's all lifted from the main games, as well as a remixed song from Tales of Symphonia. Voice acting, what little there is, is pretty good as well, but the script is so bad that it's hard to care.

 SoulCalibur Legends is as by the numbers as it gets, but it's also plagued with terrible level design, repeated stages and bosses and motion controls. And the kicker? The game is not canon as far as the developers go, so the game adds nothing to the franchise. Which is a shame, as the combat can be fun every now and then.

 4.5/10

Review #226: Touch my Katamari

 The king's bad day.

 You thought Katamari was gone, well, you thought wrong. Touch my Katamari is the latest, and last(so far), installment of the Katamari Damacy series, and it actually introduces new mechanics into the mix!

 As per usual, the King of all Cosmos is up to his usual antics, this time around people have made him feel as if he isn't what he used to be, so he is gonna prove them wrong. How? By sending his son, the Prince, roll up stuff into his Katamari and turn it into stars. There's also a sub-story surrounding Goro, an otaku trying to improve himself. The art direction has changed a bit, it's a bit rougher and looks like a hand-drawn cartoon. All in all, I liked it. The art and the dialogue mix very well into some truly hilarious cut scenes, I actually found myself laughing out loud!

 For the uninitiated, in the Katamari Damacy series, you play as the Prince as he rolls around his Katamari, rolling over stuff smaller than the Katamari will make stuff stick to it, eventually increasing the size of the Katamari and allowing him to roll up bigger stuff. This new game actually has a couple of new things that I really liked. Firstly, controls, you can either play with the classic dual-analog rolling controls, or the new, simplified controls that relegate moving to the left analog stick and the camera to the right analog stick. The new settings make rolling around the Katamari a breeze, it's gonna be hard to go back to the classic setup! There's also optional touch-screen controls, but they are imprecise, so I didn't even bother. The one, one thing I had issue with was jumping, which is done, supposedly, by tapping on the upper half of the screen. I couldn't get it to work consistently, but at least it never was a necessity.

 The new features, which seem like gimmicks at first, are really fun and a great addition to the series. By using the touch screen or the touch pad behind the Vita, you can stretch or squeeze the Katamari. Besides covering more area, they also have different speeds, stretched Katamari is slow but covers a huge area, while the squeezed Katamari is very fast, at the expense of a lower, ground-level coverage. Using these mechanics is never a necessity, but not only are they fun, they are useful.

 As much as I liked the new controls and the new mechanics, the game has a handful of drawbacks that really play against it. For instance, cousins and presents are back, but these only appear on a level after you replay it once and twice it respectively. In previous games, both the Cousin and the present would be hidden on a level from the get-go. It seems like a minor nitpick, but they used this to pad the game. I finished the game, and then immediately, because it was so fun, played it again to unlock every cousin and then.... I immediately played through the entire game again to unlock every present, because it was so fun! Where's the problem? These three playthroughs, some that had repeated attempts on certain levels since I couldn't find the present... totalled to 4 hours. FOUR. HOURS. And on these four hours, I came across just 9 Fan Damacis(More on this later). It's a short game, there's 12 stages, which also amount to only 12 other Cousins. And since I'm on the topic of Cousins, there's no way to know if you found a level's Cousin and/or present, so I hope you have a good memory.

 The game has two forms of currency, Candy and Fan Damacis. Candy I approve of, you earn it after every successful level, and it can be used to purchase Eternal(no time limit) and Katamari Drive(Sped up!) variations of every stage, as well as music tracks or clothes for the King of all Cosmos(If that's your thing). Candy is a good way to add replay value to the game. But then there's the Fan Damacis.. these may, or may not, spawn on a level, and they are used to access the 'free' DLC. There's about 10 DLC missions, and from what I saw the add new areas and what not, but in order to open up these levels you need 10 Fan Damacis. Yeah, I couldn't be arsed to grind these bastards, particularly when you can buy them for 0.99 a piece. Microtransactions in a handheld game, no thanks. Maybe one day a tenth Fan Damacy will spawn and I will actually try one of the many DLC levels, but I'm not gonna encourage this practice. On the other hand, there's paid DLC for old music tracks, that DLC on the other hand is a better practice, it's optional and it's just aesthetic, and fans of the older soundtracks will get a kick out of it.

 There's a few other things about the game that bothered me a bit. The draw distance is a bit... short. You'll see objects pop in and out of view fairly often, and fairly close to the Prince. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's something that's hard not to notice. Other Katamari games would feature a 'Collection' book, that would catalog every single thing that you rolled into your Katamari, that has been reduced into the 'Curio Book', that only accounts for rare items. And lastly, and more personal, levels feel a tad smaller than what I'm used to. I liked how there are no loading times for when the Katamari grows, but no stage reaches the huge scale that Me & My Katamari would reach on later levels, heck, it doesn't even get as small as Me & My Katamari would get on the earlier levels!

 As far as the presentation is concerned, it's top-notch. This is the best looking Katamari game I've ever played(Not that it matters in such a minimalist game!). The Cut-scenes deserve to be mentioned again, they are gorgeous. The soundtrack isn't as strong as the other games I've played in the series, but even then, it's still really good. Voice acting is excellent as well, what little there is.

 As a whole, Touch My Katamari is disappointing. The new control scheme, the lack of loading times when transitioning sizes and the new mechanics are all welcome additions to the series, I'd say that they make the game even more fun that it's ever been... but it lacks in content in which to make use of it. The game is over before you know it, stages aren't as impressive as previous games, and the microtransactions are plain disgusting. At least, even at its worst, a Katamari game is still a pretty fun game.
 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: SoulCalibur Legends

 Did you know? It's actually called 'SoulCalibur' and not 'Soul Calibur'.

 I'm not done with Terrible Wii Games(tm) just yet! Next(and last) in line is SoulCalibur Legends. First thing I gotta ask: Why? Why does this game exist? It says it tells Siegfried's story... but they also say that it's not canon to the series... so... what's the purpose? Was the Waggle to much a temptation as not to try to cash in on it?

 Regardless, it's not too bad. Using the nunchuck to dodge is nigh impossible, for me anyways, and every now and then it'll get one of my slash/thrust/slice inputs wrong, but not a big deal. There seems to be some combo system in place, you can knock enemies upwards and continue slashing, which is kinda neat. I think that if they had swapped the waggle for buttons, it could've been better, because there is some semblance of depth.

 But the rest of the game is a bit half-bakes. The targeting systems is decent, but y'know you are doing something wrong when Ocarina of Time's then-novel targeting system is better than yours. The issue comes from how much time it takes for the camera to catch up to the reticule every time you kill an enemy, or merely decide to target another one. As for the stages, they all follow suit, they are a collection of small 'arenas' connected by tunnels. The decor might be different, sometimes the walls might be made of bricks, dirt or metal, but it's the same thing over and over again.

 Still, it can be fun at times. It certainly shows more promise than Bleach - Shattered Blade!