Sequels that got it Wrong: Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2

 I'm so cool, I've got a sister featurette to STGIR.

 On the other end of the spectrum, we have sequels that got it wrong. The kind of sequel that fixes nothing, maybe even makes it worse(Yes, I speak of Xenosaga episode 2, but there are other such sequels, albeit not as impossibly bad as that one). I'm not gonna start with Xenosaga 2, no, that'd be too easy. Instead, I'll save it for a... day in which I'm with a crappier mood, that game deserves no sympathy. So today, dudes and dudettes, we be talking'bout:

 Yay! Metroidvanias! I love me some Metroidvanias. Wait, it's also made by Konami? The Metroidvania creators themselves?!(You could argue that Nintendo were, since they did make Metroid, but I'm more fond of Castlevania romps), just what could go wrong?! Eh, a couple of things. Shaman King: Master of Spirits was a good game. It wasn't amazing, and it had some very tedious mechanics, but it was fun. A tad short, clocking in at around 5 hours(With 92% complete to boot). Then came the sequel...
 Most "good" sequels(Not the ones that "got it right", I'm referring to the lesser, but still good kind) simply tend to be "more of the same". On their defence, most games that get sequels are usually good enough to warrant and allow a sequel to be greenlit. Not in this case. All Konami did was add more of the same, while fixing nothing.
 Annoyance number 1: Travelling. Master of Spirits 1 wasn't your average Metroidvania. It was divided in many short sub-stages, but like every Metroidvania worth it's salt, they were filled with areas that you couldn't reach unless you had the right power up. This also means loads of backtracking. However, you couldn't just go from point A to point B, oh no, you had to go through EACH substage in between A and B. Yeah, near the end of the game you get an ability to bypass the stages, but you still have to enter the stage, then wait as the Dragon takes it's sweet time to get into the screen. And then you have to wait for it to carry you out of the screen, while taking his sweet a$$ time. Again. What did Master of Spirits do? They added a few Warp Zones here and there, not nearly enough to alleviate it. Even worse, it still takes a long time to get the Dragon again.

 Annoyance number 2: "Get the Dragon again". Yup, all the old abilitiees are back. Master of Spirits has a total of 90+ different spirits(Equipable power ups or skills). Guess how many of them are new? A measly 24. They are mostly overshadowed by the old spirits, however you likely won't get to use them, because...
 Annoyance number 3: Cumbersome abilities. Y'see, you can only take about 2 "Field abilities". You can have 4 presets, interchangeable with Select, but y'know what's fun? 8 slots are not enough. There are more than 8 types of obstacles, and you also need a combat setup, to fight bosses or enemies. These problems were already present in Master of Spirits 1. This means going to the menu, to swap spirits quite often, everytime you fail to predict what obstacle is next. Now couple this with the obnoxious amount of backtracking. Going through so many stages, and you will also need to change abilities accordingly, so that you can proceed. Other Metroidvanias don't have this problems, since they integrate your new abilities into your exisiting moveset. Maybe a second jump just by pressing jump again? How about sliding by crouching and pressing jump? No, that's too easy, Master of Spirits 1 and 2 want you to go through as many menus as possible. Fun.
 Annoyance number 4: If you clear the game, you can fight any boss, either from MoS 1 or MoS 2. Pretty cool, huh? A nice extra? Ye...no. During the Story-mode, you face 17 out of the... 19 or 20 total bosses. You copy me? 17 out of 19 or 20. Yup, you(probably/hopefully) guessed it... bosses are recycled from the first game. There are only 9 new bosses, and the returning bosses? Behave exactly like they did in MoS 1. Even in Castlevania, known for recycling most of the common enemies, they have the decency to make new bosses. Not here. But what's even better? You have to get the SAME abilities to get throught the SAME obstacles from MoS 1. It's basically the same game!
 Annoyance number 5: All the equipment pieces are from MoS 1. Yup, you go through the same 3 swords, which you must find again. You must go through the same 4-5 same armor pieces, which you have to find again. Did they even try....?

 For what it's worth, they did add a couple of new abilities, done with button combinations. There's also a couple of new enemies(Just a few). The stages are all brand new(As far as I remember) And there might be new music, I'm not much of a music guy, and I don't really remember.... Also, the game looks pretty good, it does use the Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow engine, but then again, most of the assets are reused. Back when I played Cardinal Syn, for as bad as it was, at least I could tell that the developers tried. Konami didn't even try with this one. Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2 is a sequel, a Sequel that got it Wrong.

Sequels that got it Right: inFamous 2

 Could it be...? An actual feature?

 So, umm... yeah, a feature, pop the champaigne and bring forth the trombones. Oh, and don't forget the confetti. As the name implies, here I will write about sequels that I feel almost completely overshadow the previous installment of the franchise. I'm not talking about a good sequel, say, God of War 2, Onimusha 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's chest(It was good), but something that goes beyond what one would expect of a sequel. Something that most people would agree that puts the previous installment to shame.
 And what better way to... debut this feature than to mention a game that surprised me...

 Ah! inFamous 2, probably my favorite PS3 exclusive so far. What makes it so much better than the prequel? It's actually... hard to say. It has a certain je ne se quois that makes it feel so good... but I will try to dissect some of the improvements.
 For starters, the city itself. inFamous 1 was set in a very urban area, comprised of three big areas. The whole game was very heavy on greys and browns, and while each area had a couple of distinguishing landmarks, be it the seaport, the park or what have you, it felt a bit samey. Then came inFamous 2, with a much more tropical look to it. The game uses many more colors, and it looks amazing. The city feels alive, and it's a joy to explore. Not to mention, that while still consisting of three big areas, each area is completely different, one is a normal town, with a few jungles on the outskirts, the second area is a flooded town, which means Cole has to take to the skies and rooftops, lest he wants to die, and finally, the third area is an industrial one, with power plants and what have you.
 Another thing they did right, Cole's powers. While Cole gets de-powered at the start of the game, he gains his old powers back shortly, and then some. See, in inFamous 1, the unlockable powers were mostly little gimmicks. Like the electric missiles, if you were Good Cole, you could direct them by shooting electricity close to them. If you were Evil Cole, you'd get two mini rockets alongside the big one. Oh yeah, being Good Cole sucked, you'd mostly get precision upgrades, and Evil Cole would get destructive ones. Here, while Cole doesn't upgrade his powers, and doesn't get "new" powers... he gets new variations. For example, instead of a Shockwave, you could use a slimmer one, but that'd travel further. Or one that would make the enemies float, instead of pushing them back. And Good Cole can get an ability that makes electricity do minimal damage to innocents, alleviating the need to be careful that one had to have in inFamous 1. It doesn't end there, the idea here is "expanding", midway through the game, you get a choice for Fire powers or Ice powers. For example, remember the shockwave? Now you get an ice version, in which Cole produces various ice shards and blasts them with a shockwave, not only is it as awesome as it sounds, it feels oh so satisfying.

 Cole got a new voice actor. Yup, they recasted the main character. I can't remember the reason why, but it proved to be good. Old Cole seemed to be trying hard to sound gruff, dark and tough. New Cole sounds a bit... dorky, initially, but eventually it grows on you. Not only does New Cole have a better voice acting overall, the voice ends up fitting him quite nicely and has some very badass boasts, taunts and lines, and as a result of his new voice, he becomes much more relatable.

 inFamous 1 story wasn't really all that amazing, but it had some great moments and an amazing plot twist at the end. While inFamous 2 doesn't have such a plot twist, the overall story is much better. There's more side characters involved, and they are much more than just "voices". Cole directly interacts with them a lot more, and the dialogues are quite interesting.
 So everything got better. Graphics? Prettier. Sound-design? Better. Gameplay? Better. Story? Better. But topping all those additions is... controlling Cole. Yeah, it's part of the gameplay, but something that shocked me was... how much better it felt. Parkouring in inFamous 1 was just a means to an end. In inFamous 2, I can't pinpoint why, maybe the fact that the city is much more interesing? Dunno, thing is, controlling Cole feels better. Tighter even.
 inFamous 1 was a good game. inFamous 2 is an amazing game. In fact, inFamous 2 is so good, it makes inFamous 1 worth playing, just so that you can get the full gist of the story. inFamous 2 is a Sequel that got it Right.

What is wrong with my Dynasty Warriors 7? Part 3

 It's 6 AM, just came back from the hospital. I'm shaking, I'm too scared to go back to my room and I don't know what to do. My friend came home to play this "cursed DW" as he mockingly called it... We booted up the game, and it skipped al cinemas and got right into the game itself. My friend doesn't play DW, so he didn't find anything odd, meanwhile, I knew something was gonna happen so I... I smiled. I didn't know this was gonna happen, I feel... I feel so stupid, so bad. I was such an idiot.
 Let's see if I remember it right, my mind is still a bit foggy, and I'm getting goosebumps all over. Heck, I just locked my room's door, just in case... Anyways, I think my friend was made to play as Xiahou Ba, and it was on one of the jungly stages. Everything was fine, allies weren't attacking him nor anything, so I went into the kitchen to fetch food, and when I came back.... My friend he... he was  convulsing frenetically on the floor, and I could tell he was bleeding from the nose.
 I called an ambulance, and while it got here, I unplugged the PS3, while the Cao Cao-Lu Bu on the screen was laughing in the creepiest, most hollow-like voice I've ever heard in my life.  Once in the hospital, the doctor started questioning me, and I didn't know what to say. My friend had never had any problems with convulsions, as far as I knew, and if I told them "A videogame did it" they'd think I was some kind of idiot, so I just stuck to "I don't know, we were just watching TV".
 Thing is, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm scared. I'm too scared. Every now and then I peek into the doorway just to check. Please, help me. Help me.



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What's wrong with my Dynasty Warriors 7? Part 2

 I tried to play again after a good night sleep, and... oh man. I picked a random mission, and selected my tuned up Cao Pi. As soon as the mission started, my allies started HITTING ME. I tried hitting back, but my moves would go through them. I figured the game glitched, so I paused the game, to pick "End Mission" but as I went to pick the options I noticed... the game wasn't paused at all and I was getting hit!. Worst part? After I picked End Mission, the game just... unpaused. I tried again and same deal. I figured I'd just kill the enemies and be done with the mission, right? Wrong. Both enemies and allies were had it in for me, and  I was managing pretty well, untill I noticed... whenever I killed one of the enemies, my Kill counter wouldn't go up, and their HP would refill.
 It gets weirder. I started running from them, and Cao Cao appeared on top of a Black Red Mare. Weirder yet? It was Cao Cao's face on Lu Bu's body. He signaled at me, the PLAYER, with his sword and emitted a sound... the same sound from the glitched room from yesterday. Then a "Failed" popped up and I was allowed to exit the mission...
 Guys, I don't believe in supernatural stuff, but I'm pretty weirded out right now. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about this. Should I keep playing or throw away my disc?

UPDATE: Koei's response:
Dear Ignacio,
 Thank you for purchasing DYNASTY WARRIORS 7, we recieved your inquiry, and this is the first time any of us at the offices had heard of anything like it. I asked the translation team and they said that no such line was recorded or even put into the script. My co-workers at QA said that your console might've overheated, and you probably thought that you had heard it. If problems persist, send us your disc, and we will send you a new one.

                                                      Chip Soon Sun, Community Manager at Tecmo-Koei

 

 Right, 'cause sending them my defective disc is totally posible from where I live. Regardless, I'm sure, SURE that I heard what I heard. Since my friends kept egging me on, and just to prove Koei wrong, I will play again tonight, when one of my friends comes over to check this out.

What's wrong with my Dynasty Warriors 7?

 Hi guys, today's entry will be a little different, 'cause honestly, I'm incredibly creeped out right now. Y'see, my family just left for the holidays, but I stayed at home, so right now I'm completely alone in my apartment. Due to the LoL EU tournamente, I kinda haven't slept in like... 35 hours or so, so every now and then I start getting sleepy.
 Anyways, here's the deal, I was playing Dynasty Warriors 7, a game I love, and I was playing Zhang Liang's legendary mission 3. I noticed my conciousness started slipping every now and then, since I'd find myself on top of my horse running towards a wall, but as much as I tried to muster my energies, I was playing half asleep.
 Suddenly, I come to my senses and I'm stuck in a room, behind locked doors. What's funny, is that the sky is red, the clouds are black, and the walls surrounding me, including the big door are white. And for some reason the music got glitched, and started making funny noises. I tried hitting the walls, jumping towards them, searching for switches, mind you, DW 7 has no switches, but I was desperate. Also, the green arrow signaling my position was placed OUTSIDE the map. I don't have a capture card, but I taped it with my phone, so I'm gonna try to upload it on youtube after adding some words with Video Maker.



UPDATE:
HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT.
I dont even holy shit. I was editing the video, and while trying to get the damn program to unfreeze, I played it back... the sound WASN'T GLITCHED, and a perfectly clear voice could be heard saying "stop killing us or youll regret it" Holy fucking shit, english isn't my native language, so when I figured it out I shat bricks, literally. Im still scared.
Worst part?
The video got lost. The file on my cellphone got corrupted. Im freaking out right now. Maybe Im so tired Im messing up? I mean, right now I know im on my senses, but it doesnt make any sense otherwise. Dammit, my fingers are still shaking, so sorry if my typing is a little wonky. I'm gonna send Koei an E-mail, maybe I got into a debug Room, or it's some sort of joke? The voice was in english, so Koei's american branch is in the know.

Archview #8: Trauma Team

 A must-have Wii exclusive .

 Trauma Team is so unexpectedly good. I went in expecting another by-the-numbers motion-based Wii game... it was anything but. Trauma Team tells the story of 6 different doctors(kinda) and their exploits at Resurgam Hospital. Each doctor has a different speciality, there's Maria Torres, who deals with first-aid, she gets the easiest operations, but has to juggle multiple victims at once, Gabriel Cunningham of Diagnosis, in which you have to question and study the pacients to figure out what's wrong with them. Hank Freebird deals with Orthopedics, he gets to fix up bones, Tomoe Tachibana has the Endoscopy missions, which are the worst of the bunch, CR-S01, a criminal who lost his memory, but is a gifted surgeon gets the more complex operations, and lastly, Naomi Kimishima, who gets my favorite missions, forensics. You have to study the corpses, personal effects and crime scenes to determine the causes of death.
 Unlike most Wii-games of it's ilk, Trauma Team gets motion controls right. They feel good, and the game wouldn't be the same without it. The Endoscopy controls are a bit cumbersome, and there's some positioning annoyances with it, other than that, these motion controls work. As stated before, there are many specialties, but they can be divided in two kinds: Operations and Exploration. Diagnosis and Forensics deal with exploration and deduction. They only require you to point at places or dialogue boxes and investigate. Operations, however, have you pointing with the Wiimote in order to use the various tools, selected with the analog on the Nunchuck.

 The story is told via some amazing artwork. There's not much animation, but with such a detailed and colorful art, you kinda don't mind it. The graphics during the operations are very simple, but they get the job done. It's easy to tell what is what, and they also use bright colors, keeping in line with the art. The music I found to be appropiate for the game, and the ending theme is a bit addictive, albeit a bit cheesy. Voice-acting is...variable. There is some great voice acting on some of the characters, and others are a bit weak. The dialogue is as cheesy as it can get, with Tomoe mentioning "The path of honor" at least 1 per episode, or Hank speaking of "Justice" every chance he gets.
 The game lasts a good 15-20 hours, if you don't skip cut-scenes(Which you shouldn't). You can tackle the story-mode either by character or following the timeline, eventually all the timelines meet for the 13-chapter long finale. There are about 8-10 different operations per character, 3 different difficulty levels(Not applicable for Diagnosis and Forensics) and multiple challenges per level, so there's a bit of replay value, but not unlockables of worth(Unless you enjoy the art-less "Extra" audio quips).

 Albeit initially jarring, the game mixes some very dark storylines, like the sweet old lady whose tumor made her hallucinate, which in turn, made her kill her daughter and attempt to murder her spouse, with some light-hearted elements, like Tomoe being a Ninja(And having a ninja buttler to boot!) and one of the doctors moonlighting as a hero(He dresses in spandex and acts the part!). Surprisingly, it works, and the game will make you care about some of the characters!
 What can I say? The game is amazing. I wasn't expecting that from a "Doctor's game", but it's really good. The gameplay is fun, the story is engaging and it proves that motion controls don't necesarily suck. Trauma Team is a must-have for any Wii-owner, even if not a fan of the genre(Is it even a genre?), they should give it a try. I did, and I was not dissapointed.
 It's a 9 out of 10.

Archview #7: Cardinal Syn

 It was bad.

 Cardinal Syn is not your typical fighter. In fact, it has more in common with Power Stone than anything. Matches are 1 v 1, in a big arena, filled with hazards and items, you even get a run button for 8-way movement around the arena.
 You have 3 types of attacks, Low, Horizontal and Vertical, certain combination provide... strings(more on this later), and characters get a couple of special moves. Blocking is done with a button, which is also used for parrying enemy attacks. Jumping is also done with a button, you get pushes and grabs with another button and then there's the free run button. Options, the game provides in spades, much more than your average fighter of it's era, it's a shame the gameplay itself sucks.

 Y'see, strings are not like the Strings from other 3D fighters. Here, the oponent can block after the first hit hits, what does it mean? There are no true strings. After the first hit, it's a guessing game, a guessing game in which the CPU always has the edge, since it knows what's coming. This game should be played with another person(If you can convince anyone, maybe put Tekken's cover on the case?). There are only two ways for the strings to work 100%: attack from behind or juggling. Oh yes, there is juggling, but it feels awkward. Sometimes, when the jugglee is too close to a wall, his position will "reset" closeby, it looks really odd, like most of the game!
 The game also has items around the arena.... which is an oddly half baked system. There are chests around the stage, and they may contain one out of four items: A sword, which enhances you strenght, an Orange potion, which restores HP, a Blue potion, which lets you use your special and bombs, which explode on contact.... Four items? it feels unfinished, you are better off turning off items. Yes, the developers had the foresight to allow you to disable hazards and items.

 Character designs are bad, and the graphics are bad too. Surprisingly, the stages themselves look good, and a couple of them are really cool. The game has many little details, like characters getting hurt(They will show cuts on their bodies) and blood spatters stay on the ground. Also, hitting a wall will make your weapon bounce off it(leaving you open for an attack). It's little things like these that show that, at least, they tried. There are also some really crappy intros and endings.... for each of the 18 charactes. They tried.
 The Single Player mode is hard, even on easy, due to the CPU's ability of knowing how you are gonna attack next. It doesn't help that there is are no movelists in the game, forcing you to look up the moves online. Each character unlocks another one, which sounds cool, until you realize that they are mostly clones of the unlocker, like Kensei, except that these character designs are worse. At least they each have their own intro, ending, stage and fatality.

 Cardinal Syn is a bad game, it has some very dumb design decisions, like blocking during strings, but the little things show that they tried to make a good game. They tried.
 It's a 3 out of 10.