Book Quickie: The Fifth Child

 What a letdown.

 This book, man, this book.... It starts off really good, it´s paced quite nicely, and for 3/4ths of the story it´s really good. This initial three fourths of the book are really creepy, telling you of Ben, the fifth child. Since his conception, he has been kicking in the uterus, with such force that he would break his mother´s ribs. He behaves creepily, and has been stablished to be unusually strong and unusually big. So, it´s a really good horror story.... untill the last fourth of the book begins, after what I consider it´s climax, and then.... the horror book turns into some kind of drama. I kid you not, it was most baffling, it has such an unsatisfying ending!
 Conclussion: It´s a great horror story, until the last part of the story, when it turns into such a huge letdown...
 5 out of 10.

Getting Reacquainted: Ar Tonelico

 Oh boy...

 I stopped playing this game a couple of years ago, and for a good reason. It wasn´t very fun. The game is, alright-ish, a tad too cheery for my tastes though. I was so bored last time that I decided I´d call it a day after  getting one of the bad endings... nope, not this time, I´m getting the best ending. Damn right.

 For what it´s worth, so far it´s not AS bad as I remembered it, but it´s not too entertaining. Could be worse!

Archview #16: T´ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger

 Your Kung Fu is no good here.

 Let´s keep it short and simple, T´ai Fu is really good. The story is not as interesting as it´s setting, keeping it short, you play as T´ai Fu, sole survivor of the Tiger clan, raised by Pandas(I´m not making this up), and must journey to learn of your past and avenge your clan, who fell to the Dragon clan. There are no humans in the game, just various animals, part of different clans, who each have their own martial arts. As you play through the game you´ll be taught from the Mantis, Leopard, Monkey and Crane masters.
 T´ai´s moveset is not incredibly large, but it gets the job done. As you play through the game, T´ai will earn new moves, imitating his masters, running like a Leopard, hovering like a Crane or rolling like a Monkey. All styles serve T´ai Fu to move around through the levels, as he will need to make use of their abilities, but each one also has combat purposes. Combat itself is pretty simple, and enemies are not too challenging, most of your deaths will come from the traps each level has. Lives are quite plentiful, sometimes it seems as if the game is looking for excuses to give you more one ups!

 The graphics are great, characters look really good, and there´s virtually no slowdown, great lightning effects too. Stages themselves are quite varied, from the jungles, to the snowy mountains, there is a lot of variety. The music is quite forgettable, but it´s appropiate for the martial arts setting. The voice acting is quite good, surprising for it´s time! All in all, the game sells it´s Kung-fu inspired setting really well.
 While the game´s lenght is appropiate for the type of game, ending before it gets repetitive, there´s no replay value at all. Stages, while not small, don´t house many secrets, and said secrets are mostly one ups, nothing worth returning for. After you beat the game, you only get the ability to Level Select, but there´s nothing new, no new moves to try, nothing!
 Despite it´s lack of replay value, I had fun with T´ai Fu. It´s fun, and the presentation is quite interesting and well done.
It´s an 8 out of 10.

Archview #15: Alundra 2

 I´m doing this without my notes, so I might forget some stuff....

 For starters, Alundra 2 has nothing to do with Alundra, any similarities are purely coincidental. This time around, you play as Flint, a young Pirate Hunter, who gets roped into helping princess Alexia to free the kingdom from Baron Diaz, who replaced the king with a Puppet. Yup, it also tries to be funny, but the game has a very... quirky sense of humor, more often than not, it falls flat on it´s face.

 Although Alundra 1 was very clearly inspired by The Legend of Zelda, Alundra 2 tries, and manages, to do it´s own thing. Puzzles no longer rely on various tools, but revolve either around 4 elemental rings or the enviroment itself. Puzzles get almost as hard as Alundra 1, however, they don´t ever get frustrating, since most rooms reset themselves if you screw up. And screw up you will, puzzles are very varied, from setting up chain reactions, to acting as a tile for a statue to go over, the puzzles are quite varied.

 Combat is a bit challenging, due to the clunky system, it´s not quite obvious when the invincibility period, after the enemy gets up, ends, so you might end up getting sucker punched while you hit an invulnerable enemy. Another issue, is that the fine folk at Activision decided to rename "Normal" and "Hard" into "Easy" and "Normal", so if you are like me and choose Normal... get ready to recieve tons of damage from the enemies. Bosses are not as hard, since you must learn their patterns and how-when to attack. Some bosses are quite original, there´s one boss where you need to grab the bombs the lesser enemies drop, walk under the boss´ fire attack, to light up the bomb, and time it, so that when you throw it towards the boss, it explodes in the air. Another one has you evading his attacks, until he winds up for a punch, where you must slide into his feet, to throw him off balance, and hit his head.
 The game looks... quite bad actually, graphics are simply and messy, there´s clipping everywhere, and slowdown is quite frequent when there are many things on screen. The music is quite generic and forgettable, voice acting however, is quite decent. Luckily, the ending is much more fulfilling than Alundra 1´s, however, there are loads of loose ends by the end of the game. How did Flint´s father survive? Will Flint ever find out that that guy is his father? And the king, did they ever find him?... there are many loose ends.

 There´s almost no replay value, but the game is as long as Alundra 1, and has as much hidden stuff to find. It also has loads of minigames, like Shooter, and many secret activities, like dog hearding. Sadly, most of the good rewards require you to play the games for a long, long time, even games like Shooter, which are fun, end up becoming quite boring. Also, getting the item for the best shield in the game, means that you will almost surely give up on the magic ring enhancements, since they use the same currency, and it´s hard to aquire with the dart games. And you also need to farm loads of darts from enemies... so yeah, they are nice distractions, but the game overstimated their appeal.
 All in all, Alundra 2 is a good game. I enjoyed it more than Alundra 1, however most of it´s charm is missing. Hardly a classic, but it´s quite fun.
7.5 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: T´ai Fu

 Coming from Alundra´s 2 less than spectacular graphics, this is... whoa.

 I´m on level 3, just cleared it actually, and so far so good. Game looks great, although the music is a bit on the boring side. Combat is fun, and levels are just long enough. It does seem like the game lacks replay value, since there are not many areas, and most of them just house extra lives. Still, first impression? The game is gonna be fun. On a sidenote, why does T´ai look different on the cover? Lampshading maybe?

How Capcom killed Darkstalkers.

 Remember how Capcom blamed fans for the death of Megaman Legends 3? They expected the fans to BUY a DEMO to help THEM with the game, kinda like Raccoon City, except it wasn't a complete game, if you could call Raccoon City complete at launch that is. Said demo never made it through since Inafune left, Capcom got cold feet and blamed the fans. Regardless, they now killed any hope of Darkstalkers 4 through bad decisions.
 Capcom, fans wanted Darkstalkers 4. You didn't need to do much really, all we wanted was the full Darkstalkers 3 cast(The Playstation port that had everyone), you could skip on Dee, that new inclusion from DS collection, which was Demitri with a new head and Donovan's moves. You could also skip the Sprite edits, like Oboro Bishamon and Gold Talbain. You needn't make any new characters. Just a new engine, which you could've borrowed from SF IV or MvC , the same characters everyone loved, with a new coat of paint, and maybe a few new mechanics.
 What did you do? Port two older games and hold DS 4 hostage. You wanted to earn twice as much money, by ransoming DS 4 if DS Ressurrection sold well. If fans really wanted DS 4, they would have to buy Ressurrection AND DS 4, sneaky. So what's the problem? You offer Vampire Saviour 2. Sure, it has better graphics than the PS 1 port... but not as many characters, which makes it inferior, even if it looks twice as good(It really does look much better). And the worst part is expecting it to sell much. True Darkstalkers fans probably own these games in other way or forms:
The Saturn Vampire Saviour 2 port? The Ps1 Darkstalkers 3 port with all the characters? The Dreamcast port of VS 2? Darkstalkers Collection for PS2 importers? Darkstalkers Chronicles for PSP? Emulate it for free with M.A.M.E or WinKawaks?. The people that want and clamor for a new Darkstalkers game have, more than likely, already bough the game before and probably own it more than twice. Another blunder? Digital only. I admit that if it had come out in disc form, I would have bought it.
 So, Darkstalkers: Ressurrection, while being the 7th most sold game on PSN of it's month, failed to meet Capcom's expectations. Capcom is either very, very blind or thinks it can ride off nostalgia forever. It can't pretend to take as much as they can from the consumer, without giving them what they want instead of devicing ways to rip off their fans.

First Archimpressions: Alundra 2

 Hmmm, it's alright. It's no TRAG.

 This game feels almost nothing like Alundra so far, so I dunno why call it Alundra 2. Sure, the view is sorta the same? But it feels much, much different, and I'm not just talking about the phyisics. I'm almost an hour in and I've mixed feeling about it.
 The music is the sort of music you'd expect from a game like this, it's nothing special, but it's not bad. Surprisingly for the time, the voice acting is quite decent. The graphics however are quite bad, not only are most characters very simple and low poly(Seriously, the textures for the faces are so simple and bad) and worst of all? It will have slowdown at times. With graphics this simple, they've no excuse for it.
 The controls are alrightish, it's a bit odd that the game supports the dual shock and you can control de camera with R1 and L1, yet you can't move it with the right analog stick, it feels like a missed oportunity. Also, moving the camera while moving Flint sometimes makes the left analog stick behave oddly, it's hard to explain. On the whole, they are not as tight as I would've liked, but it's not too annoying.
 I like it a bit so far, not as much as I liked Alundra 1 when I first played it, but I doubt it's gonna be a bad game.