Archview #6: Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon

 Now this game is right up my alley....

 EDF is an arcadey third-person shooter, and like most arcadey games, that means it's just the game I like. No frills, much thrills straight to the point action, and that's the way I like it. The game is very simple, Aliens have manipulated insects genetically, making them enormous and able to spew damaging liquids(Or damaging cobwebs in the case of spiders), and are using them to invade and ravage earth, and it's up to the Earth Defence Force to stop them.

 You get to pick from one out of four different classes. Each class has different weapons avaiable to them, and each one has different perks. The Battle Armor is slow, but has a Shield and some Energy Attacks, and can take damage like a sponge. The Jet armor grants flight, but flying and reloading now share a regenerating Energy Bar, which if depleted, takes a long while to recover. The Tactical Armor provides different kind of turrets, and lastly, the Trooper, which has no special gimmick, but gets faster reload and reviving speeds. Before each missions, you get to pick two different weapons, but since this is a very arcadey game, ammo is unlimited, with the tradeoff that reloading takes a while. If your timing is good, you can halve the time by pressing reload at the right time.

 Visually, it looks like a PS2 game, which is to be expected from a budget game, but then again, PS2 graphics are not bad. On the plus side, there's little to no slowdown, even when the screen gets crowded with insects. Most of the structures in each stage are destructible, which is awesome. The music is serviceable, and the voice acting is passable. There are loads of cheesy lines, and they sometimes tried to add some funny lines... but they are not too funny. Sound effects are a bit to low, so it's a good idea to temper with the sound settings. They should have added subtitles, since most of the dialogue gets lost amidst the explotions and the gunfire.

 Something that got on my nerves a bit was the lack of damage feedback. It's hard to tell if you are actually hurting or hitting something, since there are no audio cues and the little blood spatters from bullet-based weapons are hard to see, the enemies don't even flinch, so they proceed to move as if nothing.

 

 The game is quite short, with a total of 15 levels spread throughout 3 chapters. The game lasts about 2 to 4 hours on Normal, but higher difficulties will take more time, since enemies get harder to kill, even with higher tier weapons. This, being an arcadey game, was made with replayability in mind, and after you beat it, you unlocked remixed mode, with different enemies on the levels. There's also a Survival Mode. Oddly enough, while Campaign and Remixed Campaign allow for Online or Offline Co-Op, Survival Mode can only be played Cooperatively online. It also has loads of weapons per class. Classes also level up, but it takes a long time to level up each one, perhaps a bit too long. The few enemy types do get a bit repetitive after a while.
 There are quite a few different Vehicles and Turrets on some levels, which help alleviate the repetitiveness, but on higher difficulties, your weapons will probably be much more usefull. This game is better played on Co-Op, since the AI is a bit dumb. For example, they won't sprint to revive you, instead settling for running while shooting. Also, even if they have an enemy right on their face, they will still use explosives and harm themselves. And both of those things don't mix well together, they will die before getting to your corpse! 

 Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon is a very good game, but it could've use some more time in the oven to iron out some quirky bugs, enhance the AI and maybe add 5 more levels. Regardless, if you are looking for an action packed game that is not trying to be something else, you can't go wrong with it.

 It's a 7 out of 10. 

 



Archview #5: Punch-Out!!

 I don't like it, but it's a great game...

  Punch-Out!! is a bit hard to describe... it's not your typical boxing game. For starters, you don't get to move around the Ring, being limited to side steping and ducking, there's also blocking, but latter oponents can't be blocked, so it's better not to rely on it. For offence, you get left jab, right jab, righ hook and left hook, and fulfilling certain conditions(They vary from oponent to oponent) you get Stars, up to three of them(Which are lost upon being hit), that allow you to unleash "Star Punches" for, excuse the expression, massive damage.

 The game is very arcade-like, fitting, seeing how the Punch-Out series actually started on the arcades. It consists on going through different oponents, 13 of them, to become... number 1? There's no real story to the game, befitting of an arcadey game, but there's no real need for it either. You do get some really good looking picture-slides before each oponent, giving them a semblance of background, and every time you clear a circuit, a "Little Mac training" cut-scene is played. Each boxer is completely diferrent from the other, with different patterns and moves. The game is... quite challenging actually, but memorization and reflexes are key. You can defeat each boxer through trial-and-error, figuring out what and when to dodge or counter and how to aquire stars. It's been a long time since I last had to take notes for a game, but learning the patterns will net you victory.

 Graphically, the game looks amazing, one of the best uses of cell-shading I've ever seen, and each boxer is incredibly expresive. The models also show damage, from bruises and band-aids to their rattled hair. It look awesome, but it's the least it could do, seeing how there's such a few amount of things needed to be modelled for the game. The music is very lively, and a very neat touch is how each boxer speaks in it's native tongue, and with the appropiate accent.
 The game also packs a lot of content. There's 13 different boxers, and once you beat them, you unlock Title Defence, where those 13 boxers get a makeover... and so do their movesets. Some of them are completely different from their normal versions. Each version of each Boxer has 3 different challenges to complete, adding further replay value. There's also a hidden 14th fighter, unlocked by meeting him in the incredibly challenging Last Stand Mode, where after 3 losses, the mode becomes unaccesible unless you start a new game. And they say Nintendo only makes kiddy games!

 The game does almost nothing wrong, and it's very hard to find flaws with it. One could argue that 12 out of the 14 characters are taken from previous games, and there's only one real new boxer, since the 14th is a guest character. Some could also take offence on how some characters are a bit racist in their stereotypical designs. One could also complain about how basic the Multiplayer mode is, which it is, but it's the first Punch-Out!! to ever feature multiplayer, and it was never meant to be more than a diversion from the Single Player mode.
 All in all, Punch-Out!! manages to do everything it set out to do perfectly. There's no real flaws with the game, which is a shame, since I didn't really like it!(Not my type of game). However, for fans of the genre, Punch-Out!! is a must have.
 It's a 9 out 10

Getting Reacquainted: Punch-Out!!

 This game is hard as balls.

 After an extended hiatus from playing this game, I finally picked it back up... and it's so not my kind of game. It's completely reflex-based, so if you have a keen eye and lynx-like reflexes, you shouldn't have any trouble with it. The rest of us are cursed to forever hover over the "Retry" button in order to somehow salvage our record.
 For what it's worth, the game looks gorgeous, I know I said Metroid OM was the best graphics I've ever seen on the Wii, and while I do stand by it, when it comes to character models, Punch-Out!! takes the cake. They look shiny, colorful and lack jaggies. They also have some very expresive faces, and they take combat damage! Seeing bruises in their abs, from Mac's hammers of justice is quite satisfying.
 Worth noting, while Nintendo tried their darndest to make it easy... it's still quite hard, at least in Title Defence mode. Sure, you can mash 1 and 2 while your oponent is on the floor to heal a bit. You can press "-" in between rounds(Only works once per match) to restore some health. And you even have the chance, by mashing 1 and 2 while falling to the floor, to get a "second chance"... but it is still hard.
 Well, this time, however, I plan on finishing the game before ejecting the disc, I just wish I get to unlock Donkey Kong. Game's so hardcore, during Mac's Last Stand, you only get three tries, no "Quitting" or "Retrying" if the match isn't going your way, and if you don't meet DK during your run, you'll need to start a new file. I hate this game.

Archview #4: All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation

 That was fast....

 All Kamen Rider: Ridener Generation was a game I was pretty hyped for, and it didn't dissapoint, for the most part. KR:RG is a side-scrolling beat'em up game in which you take control of your Kamen Rider of choice and a CPU-controlled ally. It's a very simple, very short and quite solid affair.
 The controls are very simple, Y is a weak attack, that can be mashed into a 4-5 hit combo, X is a stronger attack that pushes back the enemy and can be comboed into with Y. Then you have A, that provides 3-4 special attacks,  B is your jump button, R is an special ability(Unique to each Rider), L is block and L+A unleashes the Hissatsu Attack. You can also carry Health Pills, which by touching the lower screen completely refills your HP. Very basic, yes, but it works and provides more options than your average Sidescrolling Beat-em up.

 There's a large amount of characters to choose from, 29 in all, and most of them have very unique moves. All the main Riders up to Fourze are in the game, and there's a couple of "sidekick" riders, like Birth and V2. One issue, is that certain characters are much more developed than others. Some characters have 3 A moves(Jumping, Neutral and Side), but some of them have Up+A specials. Each character has a "Special Ability", but some of them are quite useless, like gaining a power-up when low on health... while others get extra moves by pressing R. Speaking of extra moves, most of the latter Riders had many forms in the TV Show, and this forms are used for ther Special moves.... except OOO and W, by pressing R, gain access to those forms, meaning that OOO is basically 6 different characters(Even different Y combo between each form!) in 1 and W is 3 in 1. It's sad, because other Riders have enough moves in the source material to permit them form changes, but they only get to use them in their special attacks.

 The game is very short, 3-4 hours tops. It's divided in 5 worlds, each with 4 levels and 1 boss level. There are also 2 extra stages per world that get unlocked via passwords(16 digits passwords), it's annoying to type 10 different 16 digit passwords, and it was a dumb decision to make them password only. There's a couple of "obstacle" courses, they are not very fun, but they are short enough. Most levels are very easy(Normal difficulty), and quite short, which makes the game easy to play on the go. Surprisingly, the last boss is pretty hard, so you might want to level up a bit and clear some missions to raise the health pill limit before tackling him. Ah, yes!, missions, the game has replay value in the form of missions, they range from using a certain character on the level to not using Health pills..

 The presentation is top-notch, featuring big, well-animated sprites. The Riders themselves move like they did on their shows, which is a great plus, and most of the bosses are taken from the show themselves. It's a shame there's so few of them, 'cause they up the "Kamen Rider value". On the other hand, backgrounds are very plain and unexciting, you might as well play on a white void and you wouldn't notice. The music serves the game, and while I'm not sure if all the original voice actors are in(Kiva doesn't sound like Wataru...), the sound effects are legit. I never get tired of "Midnight Fever!" from Tatsulot!.
 All in all, it's a very solid game, it's a shame it's so damn short.
 It's a 7 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation 1

 It's what I expected, mostly.

 And that is a good thing. AKR is a side-scrolling beat'em up in the same vein as Final Fight or Streets of Rage. While not overly complicated, it does offer more options than those games, presenting players with a Weak Combo Attack(Y), a Strong Attack(X) and the Special Attack(A), that coupled with the directional pad nets you two or three special attacks. The animation is superb, but the backgrounds are kinda lacking.

 So far, I'm enjoying the game a whole lot, it's fun, BUT, you will need a guide of sorts, since this game was never localized, and in order to unlock some of the Riders, you need to know what the mission objective is, other than that, it's smooth sailing.

Archview #3: Xenoblade Chronicles

 Spoilers: It's the best JRPG I've played since Persona 4.

 Grab the big, open spaces of your favorite Western RPG, add the narrative focus of your favorite Japanese RPG and mix it with the battle system of an MMORPG and you get Xenoblade, and that's the fastest way to describe it.
 Xenoblade tells the story of two giants, who were locked in deadly combat, until eventually they killed each other, and life was born on both of them. Mechons on Mechonis and Homs(Humans) and other races on Bionis. For many years the Mechons have been attacking the Bionis, and the races of Bionis had no means to defend themselves but the Monado, an ancient sword that hurts the wielder, but allows them to destroy Mechons. This sword finds it's way into Shulk hands, granting him the ability to see into the future, an ability that he will need in his quest for vengeance. The story is very good, with a marriage of original ideas and stablished tropes, told via excellent cut-scenes that never fail to impress.
 The game play like a western RPG in that the enviroments are huge, and you can reach any place that you can see. Waterfalls in the distance? You can reach them. Towers? You can reach them too. Nothing, absolutely nothing is out of limits. The game has a great sense of scale and has some amazing views from some of the highest points in the game's world. It has to be said, that since it's so huge, travelling is slow. You can make it a bit faster by inserting gems into your equipment, but it's not enough. Swimming, in particular, is very slow, and some of the high-level areas can only be reached by swimming, making it a chore to reach them. The game does allow fast-travel to many Checkpoints in each area, and you can fast travel anytime you are out of combat and to any place, regardless of where you are, making it quite convenient.

 Another problem with the huge areas are towns. Getting quests can be a bit of a hassle, since you need to find the NPCs on the town... NPCs that may be avaiable only at certain times. So you need to comb the city both at night and during the day just to search for quests. And there's no way to know if new quests popped up, and the map only shows you the Quest Symbol if you are close to the NPC that has a quest, so be prepared to return to the towns after every major plot point and comb the cities. Again. And search the cities after completing quests too, since each quest completed raises your affinity with the town, which in turn, opens up more quests.
 The Combat system feels out of an MMORPG. You control one character, in a party of three, and autoattacks are automatic. You can move the character around to reposition him, and on the lower part of the screen you have a customizable pallette with all the Arts you brought. There's no mana, so Artss are ruled by Cooldown only, also, there are no items, so combat is based solely on Arts. Unleash many Arts, and you'll raise the three-segment tension bar, which allows you to revive fallen comrades or use the Chain attack. Chain Attacks freeze the enemies, and allows you to use one Art per character, though if you raise the affinity between characters, you may get the chance to use more arts. Shulk's ability to see into the future affects battles too, so when a enemy is about to use an attack that'd kill a ally, Shulk gets a vision of it, granting you time to stop the enemy or make it change targets.

 The game looks amazing, while character's faces are a bit emotionless, all the areas in the game look incredible, and the character are well animated. Different armor pieces actually look different on the characters. There are about 9 different looks per armor piece, with different colors, and most of them look really good, and they are are reflected in the cut-scenes! The music is fantastic, and the voice acting is excellent. The britsh voice actors also bring a certain freshness to the dub, since it's usually American VAs who dub games. And the game has lots of little details, like the characters speaking with each other during and after combat, and optional "Heart-to-Heart" spots, where you can watch a short cut-scene between two characters, adding depth to their personas.
 Xenoblade is a LONG game, it's not your average 40 hours RPG. If you are gonna play Xenoblade, get ready to make a commitement with it. The game has a lot of content, be it sidequests(There are over 450 different quests.), the world itself, the optional Heart-to-Heart moments or even secret areas.
 It does have a few shortcomings though, mainly, some of the "gathering" quests. Everywhere you go there are blue spots on the ground, these spots are Items that can be collected, and "what" item they are is completely random. Some quests task you with gathering a certain amount of a certain item, and finding them can be a real pain in the a$$, you might find yourself going from one end of the area to the next multiple times just praying to find that last item. Then there are the rare drops. Some quests task you with gathering certain enemy drops, and sometimes, it'd be a quantity of a rare drop from a rare enemy, so you are gonna have to rereturn to the same area to make the enemy respawn until it drops the damned item. And with Unique Monsters, you are gonna have to soft-reset in order for it to respawn. This is not fun. My last gripe would be with the amount of HP monsters have, normal battles can last a wee bit longer than needed, having level 20 enemies endure more than 4 autoattacks from a level 60 character is not amusing.

 Luckily, it's few flaws don't put a damper on the whole experience. Xenoblade is a game that was worth the wait, and quite probably the best JRPG released this generation. Right now, it sits among my favorite RPGs, a feat I never expect from Monolith Soft, creators of Xenosaga and other underwhelming games. If you have a Wii and like RPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles is a must have.

 It's a 9/10

Romance of the Three Princesses

 Or how I learnt to like Twilight Princess.

 

 It's no secret that I'm not the biggest of Zelda fans, but I do enjoy the series. Searching through online stores, I found Twilight Princess, used, at a decent price, the owner said no scratches, so I bought it, turns out "no scratches" meant "quite a few". Still, I didn't notice 'till I got home, so I was screwed. I hoped for the best and played the game, but it was annoying. Every now and then, be it gameplay or cut-scene, the screen would go dark and "Problems reading the disc" would appear on the screen. I had to remove it, and insert it again, praying it'd work. At 35ish hours I finished the game, missing 3-4 heart containers, and only using a guide to find the bugs. My final conclussion? "Overrated, the game is bad, how can people like it?", regardless, I kept in mind that I had to get a new disc, since I want working discs on my collection.

 Days went by, and I found another used Zelda. Once again "No scratches", according to the seller. Guy lived so far, I had to go by bus(I like walking) to get the game. Got the game, returned home and... More scratches, same condition as the previous disc. I even tried it, and it presented the same problems. Bummed, I cursed the destinies, since I needed a third Zelda disc. For what it's worth, the Twilight Princess discs allowed me to install Homebrew on my Wii, so it wasn't a complete waste.

 Then, Nintendo announced it's "Player's choice" line, among them, Zelda: Twilight Princess. It was my chance. However, I decided to buy a slightly more expensive vanilla Twilight Princess, to get the white box, new, so that it'd have no scratches. Since I was gonna buy it again, I decided to replay it, as not to waste so much money, again, just for a ornament. This time, I used a guide to get all the heart containers, since I already went through the game once. 31 hours in, I finished the game with everything done. Only this time, the fact that it didn't have any "Unreadable disc" annoyances, I played the game straight, and.... I enjoyed it a lot. This was the "darker" Zelda I've been craving, while still retaining the more lighthearted elements of the series. It's a shame Link lost some of the expressions he had on Wind Waker, but the weirdness Zelda is known for was intact.
 I managed to sell the other discs, but branding them as "Slightly scratched"(Hey! They ripped me off first). The first sell was a bit odd, the guy thought I was selling the Gamecube version of the game, and they(He came with his kids) wanted to try the game. They didn't seem to friendly, so I faked " Oh, sorry, I don't live here, it's my friend's. I live further down the street". Initially they didn't want to buy the game, so I went to the university... only to get called midway, they changed their mind, and wanted to buy it, as to resell it later. I went back, only that I went further away from my house, as to return from the other side, since I was going to my "real" house. Sold the game, got the money. The second sale was nothing remarkable, so no funny stories there.
 And so ended the era of the three Zelda discs, and my hate for Twilight Princess.