First Archimpressions: Dynasty Warriors 7

 Spoiler alert: It's good.

 Just played some Wu missions, and... it's really good. While the lack of Free mode is an unforgivable omission, I'm willing to give Conquest mode a try. Meanwhile, the new Story mode is great, loving the fact that it's more faithful to it's source material. Graphics are great, but slowdown is frequent. This is probably my favorite set of character redesigns, but I'm still not feeling Zhou Yu's... luckily DW 8 gave him his old head back, but that's another game.
 Gameplay-wise, it's your typical Dynasty Warriors game, while I haven't played 3-6(Yet), I had no problems whatsoever getting into the game and bashing helmets. If you like DW, you'll like entry number 7, if you've hated it all along... just skip it.
 Moving on, since I hate to keep my posts short, what's the plan for this blog?
A) Dynasty Warriors: The retrospective -> Starting with 7, then going back to 1 through 6 to see just how we got to 7.
B) Xenoblade Review: It's a long game...
C) Megaman Starforce Spectacular.
D) First Book review of the blog!

Archview #2: Kensei Sacred Fist

 Breast physics on a man? Game of the forever.

 

 Kensei: Sacred Fist is your by-the-numbers 3D-Fighter. Clearly inspired by Tekken, visually, it actually borrows the basics from Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive, featuring one Punch Button, one Kick Button, one Grab Button(Unlike DoA and VF, Punch+Kick is NOT Grab, it's a separate button) and a Guard button. Like every 3D fighter worth it's salt, you have a sidestep, however, there's no crouching or jumping, except for a few moves. However, there's a key difference between this game and the previous three I mentioned... Kensei never had an Arcade release, nor was it meant to. Kensei is a very slow game, characters move slowly, and react slowly to your commands. It takes a while to get used to, and it never quite manages to feel natural.

 The game has a roster of 22 characters... however, there are only 10 base styles, the remaining 12 characters use a slightly(and by slightly I mean 2 or 3 moves) modified moveset from those 10 styles. For what it's worth, all 22 characters, visually, are very different, and the 10 different movesets are nicely fleshed out, some even feature stances! As for how they look.... it's a mixed bag., some moves look really, really good, but others look awkward at best. The ninjas in particular have awful animations and movesets, and there's three of them.

 

 Regardless, the characters look very good, very detailed. A shame most of them are very odd, and the ones that look good, are rip offs. You have Yugo, a Kazuya(Tekken) wannabe, Heinz, a mixture of Hwoarang(Tekken) and Jacky(Virtua Fighter), Cindy's alt and manerisms are reminicent of Anna(Tekken), then there's Billy and Jelly, two characters, one with a parrot head and the other one a penguin head, who share a slot, not unlike Roger/Alex(Tekken). Originality is not the game's strongest suit. Oh! I almost forgot, there's a Steven Seagul stand-in and the ill-named David Human, a wrestler, and probably, the first male character to have a bouncy chest. The backgrounds are a bit too simple, but there are a few standouts, like the street alley(which, incidentally, looks a lot like Paul's stage in Tekken 3).

 Voice acting in this game is best left forgotten. While it doesn't reach the cheesyness of Virtua Fighter, it's not good either. Some characters speak in english and others in japanese. The music is serviceable, it's so low-key you rarely even notice it while you play.

 

 You start off with 9 characters, and it's fun to play with each one just to find out which new character you get, prepare for dissapointment though. Something very odd, for a console fighter of it's time, is that there are no character endings whatsoever. There's barely any story either, not that a fighter needs it, but it shows a bit of lazyness. You do unlock an amusing racing-like minigame when you beat the game with all the characters, in which you hold X and race against time through some barebones circuits.
 The game... is not worth it. It's too slow and unresponsive, and lacks any type of originality, but, I feel that they could have fixed all that with a sequel. Kensei feels like a decent foundation for a greater game. Tweak the movesets, diversify the characters, make them more original, make the controls more responsive.... Sadly, a sequel never happened and we are left with this...
It's a 4 out of 10.

"First" Archimpresions: Kensei Sacred Fist

 What... what happened to you?

 I like fighting games, they are my favorite game genre, up there with RPGs and Metroidvanias. After losing all faith on modern gaming, I decided to go retro and start getting older games, when companies hadn't become as greedy as today. My first two targets were: Older games I enjoyed and every PS1 fighting games I could find. I knew PS1 had a lot of crappy fighters, I had a couple, but if I had high hopes for one of them, it was Kensei. So, I boot up the game, pick the character I used to love, Heinz(If Hwoarang(Tekken) and Jacky Bryant(Virtua Fighter) decided to have a baby, it'd be Heinz. And first thing I notice is... input delay. It takes some seconds for the button presses to register. I read about it, but in my memories, it didn't seem to be a problem, I remembered an excellent Tekken 3 clone. Goddammit Young Me, this game is bad. Bad. BAD.
 It has some redeeming qualitites though, the graphics are pretty good, I mean, it's a fighter so it has no excuse, but it is very pretty. It has some neat ideas, for example, when blocking, the character will dodge the moves. It looks really nice, and very different from most fighters. Another neat thing, when tripped, if you press Block at the right time, your character will regain his balance, reminds me of Rival Schools a bit. It also has a huge roster(for it's time) of 22 characters, most of them unlockable, so they actuall give you a reason to play with each character(Since each character unlocks a new one). Oh! And there's an unlockable racing mini-game, but I will have to unlock it again before passing judgement.
 Sadly, they don't make up for the rest of the game. It's very slow, moves feel heavy, but they don't have the "impact" to match the wind-up. Also, the game-crippling input delay. It's very annoying, and not very fun. Remember those 22 characters? Well, most of them don't look very appealing, and those that do, are unmistakable rip-offs, and move-wise, half of them are clones. Remember the "reason" for playing Arcade mode? Well, there are no ending. A Console-exclusive PS1 FIGHTER with no endings. Stories rarely matter in fighting games, but they didn't even try. They didn't even try.
 And that's the gist of it. I will continue to unlock everything and then judge it. It will not be pretty.

Why KOS-MOS doesn't Work: A Xenoblade Prologue

  Meet KOS-MOS, the dumbest design you'll ever find.

 KOS-MOS makes no sense. At all. Bold statement, but completely well founded. KOS-MOS is supposed to be the only anti-gnosis ever, and they make it a... woman? First of all, if you had to give it a human body for whatever reason, you'd give it a male body. Why? Breasts. Breasts get in the way, there's a reason Amazons would burn one of their breasts in order to be proficcient with a Bow. And no, there's no "breast rockets" nor protective coating, proof of this is SRTOG, where KOS-MOS breasts bounce. You wouldn't place important circuitry in a "soft" spot, specially not in such a easy to target place. Breasts have no place on a mobile weapon. I'm willing to give the Realian women a pass since it's feasible to think that, since they don't have any particular purpose, companies would have taken a "Sex sells aproach", after all it's Japan we are talking about, they sell pillow-covers with anime girls on them, and the ever popular breast-mouse pads. But a Weapon? You want it to be efficient. And what about the cost? Being the only anti-Gnosis weapons would mean that she was probably quite expensive, last thing you want is to increase the cost by adding unnecesary features, like breasts.

 And what else does KOS-MOS have to aid her in battle? A Mini-skirt. Right, because that doesn't impair movement at all. And high heels. She's the only anti-gnosis weapon, and she wears high heels and a mini-skirt. Stupidity doesn't end there, it also has long hair, giving enemies another place from where to grab her. This amounts to KOS-MOS being the less realiable weapon one could find, and to top it all off, the only one that can harm the enemy Gnosis.

 I haven't mentioned the brilliant idea to give the ONLY anti-gnosis weapon a conciense yet. Why would you do that? If you, finally, after being defenceless for so long against an enemy, managed to create an anti-gnosis weapons, last thing you'd do is make it a robot. Heck, even in game, there's an incident where KOS-MOS goes haywire and kills people. Why would you continue with it? Just make it a weapon, doesn't take a genius to realize it's much more cost-efficient and reliable than having it "think".
 Her backstory doesn't make sense either, she kills Shion's lover, after going haywire, so Shion decides to complete her? It's not like KOS-MOS was their life-long proyect, not at all. Shion has no reason to decide to finish her, no real motivator. "Kevin's dream"? Bullsh!t. And the saddest part? Shion treats her like a daughter or some kind of love interest(It's Japan, so it's probably both), it makes no sense.
 I noticed something... if you enjoy a game, if it's good, you won't ever think about this stuff. It's only when a game is so bad that you can't stand it that you begin to realize just how dumb the plot can get. That's why some games get away with making no sense. They are so fun they suck you into their world. That's why older games are still fun today, even if they have no story at all. As long as the foundations are solid, you will have fun with it.
 Xenosaga 2 is a game that doesn't want to be played.

Monolith Soft: A Xenoblade Prologue

 Xenoblade is so awesome, I'm making a Prologue article.

 Monolith Soft is a company I've very mixed feelings about. On one hand, they made one of my favorite RPGs ever, but on the other one, they made the worst games I've ever played. Ever. One of the things I hate the most about their games, but they seem to have toned it down(Thanks, Nintendo?), is the fanservice. These guys love it to a fault, and sometimes it detracts from the games themselves. Still, they have made at least two great games, and their new X game is looking mighty fine, and since I've finally returned to Xenoblade, after a long study-hiatus, I decided to speak my mind on how I feel about their games, and... here we are.

 Xenogears, while technically made by Squaresoft, it was made by programmers who later left and created Monolith Soft. Xenogears was, and is an amazing game, from it's highly complex story and characters, to it's fantastic Battle engine, which mixed Fighting Games with the turn based battles of RPGs, it worked perfectly and created a impossibly original, and never imitated(sadly) system. Xenogears downfall is it's 2nd CD. It feels rushed, specially in it's begining, doing away with cutscenes, and switching to character narration, alongside images of what they are talking about. Luckily, it doesn't take away from the whole experience, despite feeling a bit odd.

 Xenosaga Episode 1, their first game as Monolith Soft was... a letdown. It might be a decent game, maybe, but the problem I have with this game, is that I was expecting Xenogears 2, and all I got was Xenosaga. For starters, some of the characters motivations make no sense. Xenogears had a very complex plot, but it made sense, Xenosaga's does not. Another gripe I had was with the battle system. I expected an evolution of the Xenogears battle system, instead we got a watered down version of it. In Xenogears you had Triangle, Square and X as attack buttons, now you only get Square and Triangle. In Xenogears, mixing buttons(each button had a value, Square was 1, Triangle was 2 and X was 3, you could press buttons up to a value of 16) resulted in various special moves, but now you can only mix up to three buttons. It's a huge step back from Xenogears, but it doesn't stop there, Mechs were a huge part of Xenogears gameplay and story... not so anymore. Their importance is downplayed, their designs are generic at best and their usage limited. Oh, and to top it all, multiple pantyshots of the underaged Momo. Thanks Monolith Soft.

 I have played many bad games in my lifetime, but this ranks up there with the worst of them. Definitly the worst game I've played on PS2. It's SO bad I haven't played Xenosaga 3 yet(I finished this one in 2009), doomed forever to collect dust. Maybe. I could go on and on on what makes this game so awful, but I'll save it for another piece I'll write on sequels, so I'll just mention the biggest offender: The battle system. Y'see, for some reason, they decided to change it up, again, but... it's needlessly complex, in a bad way. The first thing you should know, is that the game doesn't want you to play with the characters you want to, oh no, 'cause you see, some characters can make the enemies float, and others can bury them, both features which you'll need to use if you want to stand a chance. Oh, and the enemies with Float status? Only certain characters can damage them. But it doesn't end there, oh no, characters have different attack types, and enemies are weak to certain types of attacks, so you are gonna have to be shuffling characters according to the zone and enemy type. It's not fun, specially when more than half of the cast are an annoying waste of RAM. And you know there's a problem with your battle system, if the boss of a Dungeon is easier than a random encounter.

 Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier was the next game I played from them, and... I've very mixed feelings about it. The Battle System is very fun(for a change), but during Boss Battles it becomes annoying. Each character character can attack up to 5 times on his turn, this 5 attacks are pre-defined before battle, you can have the same Attack 5 times, or different ones. The goal of the battles(Besides winning) is juggling the enemy, to deal the most damage possible. If the enemy falls out of the juggle, he will, probably, block your next attacks, so by carefully cancelling each attack into the next one, you can keep the enemy floating and recieving damage. All this is thrown out the window once you reach a boss. Bosses have the chance, completely random,(And this is a fact) of falling out of the juggle and completely block your following attacks, and later in the game, it becomes quite annoying. The game also suffers from grinding, bosses are damage sponges, so prepare to grind in order to stand a chance against some of them. SRTOGS:EF is a very ugly game, the character cut outs look very amateurish, and so do the sprites themselves, luckily they are mostly well animated. Another thing that sets this game back is the focus on fanservice, from the female character designs(which makes them look really stupid), to their animated cut-outs during their special moves( boobs jiggling), to the dialogue. The game is full of boob jokes, never amounting to anything serious, making it a very light-hearted romp. Somehow, the game got a sequel, but it never got out of Japan. Can't say I care.

 Their last DS game to be released on America was Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Sayians. It's a very standard JRPG, the battle system is the very traditional turn-based combat most JRPGs follow, with little nuances, like "Super Ki Attacks" and combined specials. It's a very entertaining game, and maybe due to it's source material, lacks any kind of fanservice. The game starts a little bit earlier than the Goku VS Piccolo fight on the Budokai Tenkaichi, and goes up to the battle with Vegeta on Earth. The game remains quite faithful to the source material, adapting the filler from the anime and creating a few original substories(Which were needed if you meant to make an RPG out of DBZ). Surprisingly, while the sprite-art is similar to the one they used on SRTOGS:EF, it looks very pretty now. Characters look big, detailed and animate really well. While the game's ending teased with an image of Frieza, it never got a sequel.

 And this brings us to Xenoblade. While I'm only(Yes, only, this game is massive) 52 hours into the game, it already made me a fan at barely 3 hours in. The Scope of the game is ginormous, if you can see it, you can reach it. And it feels like Sidequests never end, which is both good(Lots of content) and bad(Sometimes you just want to continue with the story, but OCD kicks in!). The characters are not too deep, but the story so far is great, filled with mysteries and interesting twists(But you can see most of them coming anyways). The game feels like an MMORPG, specially the battle system, which I'm not a fan of, but it still manages to put every other RPG on the Wii, and most(Like I played most of them, this is just an asumption, sue me.) of the RPGS on X360/PS3 to shame.

 

 Monolith Soft, hopes are high for your next Wii RPG, and after Xenoblade, I doubt they'll dissapoint.

                     

 

Memories of a Young Pokemon Master

 I used to be the best. The very best.



 So how did everything begin? Well, before Pokemon became famous I.... who am I kidding, the TV Show, of course. Regardless, after getting hooked to the TV show, I knew of the existance of the Gameboy games, but I wasn't a fan of the portable console. Such a small screen? Limited color pallette? Bro, I had a N64, 3D, why'd I want a little NES?. Everything changed once I got my grubby paws on Pokemon Stadium. You could link it to the Gameboy games? Oh man, I want this sh!t!. So I pleaded. And pleaded. And eventually convinced my parents that Pokemon Yellow was a great investment for my entertainment purposes! And I promised to get good grades(Which I didn't. Mom, Dad, you should've learnt not to pay it forward!).

 And I got addicted to Pokemon Yellow. I'd play it on the Doduo Tower(Never managed to unlock the Dodrio Tower) for hours on end. Nevermind the fact that I loved, loved the art on the instruction booklet, it used very light colors, and it was very simple, but very eye catching, I'd reread the manual just to look at all the art.

  My closest friends got Pokemon Yellow too, so we'd speak of the game during school breaks. For some reason I can't recall, I suddenly had the urge to play Gameboy Games on the go, so, once again, I pleaded... and I got one... alongside Pokemon Blue(And since my sister would complain, they bought her a Gameboy too, and Pokemon Red). Since this is a third world, pirate games run abound, so I told my parents "Hey, this yellow cartridges are counterfeit, the only yellow cart is Pokemon yellow", so we went back to the store, and, of course, I was right, so somehow I convinced them to get us the original copies of Blue and Red, despite them being waay more expensive. And I ate Pokemon blue up. It was almost the same game as Yellow, but it was still fun. Interestingly enough, as a kid, I never had trouble remembering which Pokemon I had, but when I replayed the game when I was older, I noticed that, once you are in a random battle, there's no way to know if you already caught it!

 



 One day, for some reason, I decided to bring my Gameboy to school, and after some days, my friends started bringing their GBs to school. And afterwards? Kids who had a Gameboy would bring it. You can call me a TrendSetter! Pokemon became an every-day tradition, I'd clear the Elite 4 time and time again. It was fun.
 Then news of Pokemon Gold and Silver started coming, Oh. My. God, was I excited! I clearly remember an EGM issue that had Ho-Oh on it's cover, my god, did that issue hype me up. I'd tell my parents and my friends about all the new stuff the game would bring! And as soon as those games made it over here, I got Gold and my Sister got Silver. To this day, Gold and Silver remain my favorite Pokemon generation ever. With Cyndaquill being my favorite Pokemon and starter.

 And my god, do I have memories with Pokemon Gold. This was the game that made me want to get a Link Cable(Which I managed to find, but it was a counterfeit, and it would bring some fun experiences later on....). By the time I got it, I had already cleared the game, and the first thing I did was send all my Pokemon Yellow creatures to my Gold Cartridge. My time-honed Level 100 Pikachu and Level 100 Mewtwo were my most prized posessions. So prized, that a then-friend, but future enemy, wanted me to lend him my Pikachu, since he couldn't clear the Elite 4. I said yes, but played the fool and never lent it to him... I had a feeling I might not see my Pikachu again.

 Kanto. Once you beat the game, you opened up the road to Kanto. I had no idea about that, so when I first experienced it, my mind was blown. It's never been done again in any other Pokemon, the ability to return to the area of a previous Pokemon game, which is a shame, since this is one of the reasons Pokemon Gold and Silver were so awesome.

 Red. You can battle Red. This. Mind Blown. Again. Completely unexpected, and completely awesome.

 The legendary Cats. To be honest, way back then, me and my friends thought they were Dogs, so we'd call them the Legendary Dogs. All of us had agreed that it was nigh impossible to catch them all without the Masterball, so we gave up without even trying.... But I had bought a Expert Gamer magazine, and I read about Gengar and Mean Look. So one night, waaaay past my bedtime, I got a Hunter, traded it to Gold to get a Gengar, and trained him to level 56(I can't believe I remember the exact number). So the whole night I was chasing the Legendary Cats. And I caught them. All three of them. Next day I went to school, I was dead tired. But I was feeling like a baws. First thing I tell my friends is "I caught them." I caught them.

 

 206. That was the last number I saw my original file clock, before my data got deleted. Every day, when my mom would drive dad to work, and then leave us at school, I'd be chilling in the backseat, probably re-defeating the Elite 4. Or rebattling Red. I had caught, thanks to my sister's Pokemon Silver and Red, almost all of the Pokemon, and I was missing a very few of them. I'd probably got over 230 of them. Me and my friends were addicted, so eventually, we started wondering just who was the better Pokemon Master, and I had a Link Cable, so...
 I did mention it was a counterfeit Cable, right? We had the weirdest experience while battling. For some reason, in my friend's gameboy, it looked as if I had sent a Tangela, which I hadn't, and it was a Shiny Tangela. And even though he got the Tangela to 0 HP, it kept on fighting(We, instead of freaking out, were highly amused, so we continued fighting to see what'd happen). As for me, it'd look as if my friend had sent a Tentacruel, which he didn't have, and every now and then, when I got it to half HP, he'd call Tentacruel back, and... switch it with itself? Very odd.

 Fast forward to the future, I got a Gameboy Advance, with Mario Advance 1. It'd be my only GBA game for a looong time, since they were expensive as heck. So, one day we went to the Chuy... Tax-free games? I'm. So. In. The first game I get? Pokemon Ruby. I fell in love with it. It was a blast. Granted, I didn't get as addicted as I got with Pokemon Gold. The fact that only one of my friends had a GBA and Pokemon probably had to do with it, since there was no "Comparing notes" with more people. Still, when I look at Ruby now, I can't see why I enjoyed it so much. The new Pokemon design are a step back from Gold and Silver, and I remember being dissapointed at "just 8 gyms again? No 2nd city?!"

 I wouldn't play a Pokemon game again until Pearl. This time, I could tell the designs weren't too good. Definitly better than Gen 3 though! And I clocked over 120 hours on this game, thanks to the Wi-Fi. Trading 'mons only was a blast. Right now, on that cartridge, I have every Pokemon and Stone I need to fill the Pokedex, but I lost the drive to fill it.

 And then comes Pokemon HeartGold, the one I consider to be the Perfect Pokemon Game. I barely clocked 50+ hours or so, but it is the best Pokemon game. Everything that made Gold good is here, plus all the improvements the series has made over the years. And one of my favorite features? You won't see a new Pokemon until you reach Kanto. So it's the original Pokemon Gold experience, only enhanced by years of perfecting the formula. And my one complaint? Why wasn't this game released so many years ago? Young me would've loved, LOVED this game. It's a shame I can't get as hooked to Pokemon as I once did, but this game reminded me why Gold was so much fun. Why I consider Gen 2 to be the best generation ever. And how lucky the young kids are now a days.

Archview #I : Metroid Other M

 It's not that bad. Shocking, I know.

 Let's get the pink elephant out of the room first: Yes, the story is bad, and sadly, not in a cheesy way. It's not terrible, as in, it could've been a lot worse and it's full of dumb stuff, there's the Samus character-breaking moment with Ridley, a whole "Traitor" subplot that doesn't get "officially" resolved, and some of the actions characters take are baffling. There's scenes that defy all logic, like the Deleter getting out of a certain cockpit, when there was no possible way he could've gotten out without Samus seeing him, and with only one way to run... and right after that, they show him at another place, doing stuff... Yeah, the story is all over the place, but rest assured,  it could've been worse, I think.

 Gameplay-wise, the game doesn't know what it wants to be. Most of the combat has a very arcade-like feel, which I love, with Samus auto-targeting, and you only have to mash the 1 button in order to shoot. Dodging is accomplished by tapping any direction right before being hit, and Samus will dash away, press 1 during the dodge, and Samus will insta-charge her beam, for a quick counter attack. Samus also has a "Finishing move", done by running towards the enemy while charging your beam. So it seems the game rewards quick reflexes, with a fast combat designed on offence, right? Well, you'd be wrong. The game does away with enemy drops(Meaning that combat is completely pointless, unless the doors get locked, the only thing you can get out of the combat is the possibility of getting damaged), instead, in order to recharge your missiles, you have to stay put in place, point up with the Wii-mote and hold the A button for a couple of seconds. And to recharge your health? After your HP falls below a certain threshold, you are allowed heal back a fixed amount by following the same procedure to recharge your missiles. Staying put in a fast-paced game? Kinda breaks the flow of the game, don't it? It doesn't end there, shooting missiles, the most aggravating gimmick of the game, you have to point at the screen with the wiimote, at which point the game switches to first person, in the direction Samus was looking at(So, if you just dodged and need to counterattack, you need to reposition yourself. With the digital pad. That lacks any precision. FUN), hover over your desired target, and hold the B button for a second, only then will Samus ready the missiles allowing you to shoot them with A. Oh, and you can't move while in first-person. Shooting missiles never manages to feel right, it will probably make you hate the controls for the first part of the game. Luckily, once you get the Plasma Beam, you are no longer forced to use missiles, since bosses are suceptible to the Plasma Beam, and the game becomes fun. But until you get said upgrade, the controls will get in your way. The game is not hard at all, even though the enemies deal a lot of damage, but it's easy to dodge... until you need to aim with the cursed missiles.

 The game suffers from this arcady action focus though... Metroid games are associated with exploration and discovery, so they tried to have that in the game, by placing power-ups scattered around, some only accesible with the right tools... and then you go through a door and the game locks it behind you. Once again, it doesn't know what it is: Is it an arcade-action game? or is it an slower paced action game? It doesn't know. It places power ups all over the ship, but it locks doors, so that you are always moving forwards, the game keeps contradicting itself in this regard all the way through, until the end-game, when you are allowed free access to the whole ship.

 The Devs also placed some really annoying and flow-breaking moments in the game: Pixel hunts. Every now and then, after a cut-scene, the game will have you "find" something while in first person. It breaks the flow of the game, it's a dumb mechanic, it's often obtuse, since you might be pointing at the right place, but the game won't register it unless it's the exact pixel it wants you to look at. Sometimes you'll also get mini-boss battles in first-person only, which consist in aiming at the right target and shooting missiles. Heck, the last boss is one of this dissapointing first-person... events. A really lame way to end a game.(Luckily the post-game has the most epic battle in the whole game, so it's worth playing just for that one fight).

 Graphically, the game looks gorgeous, I dare say it's the best looking Wii-game I've ever played. Characters look very detailed, and while the animations are not the best, rarely do they look awkward. The music is... all borrowed from past games, so if you like Metroid's soundtrack, you won't have any problems with it. Finally, voice-acting is... great, actually. Specially Samus, while I was initially put off by Samus' cold, monotonous voice, eventually it sank on me: This. This is how a battle-hardened bounty hunter is supposed to sound like, which is what makes Samus' voice-work so excellent. The rest of the cast pull off a convincing job too, but Samus is a standout among them.

  All in all, the game is not all that bad, it has some very fun mechanics, but they are hampered by a really bad story and the game's identity crisis.

 It's a 5/10.