First Archimpressions: Xenosaga 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra

 It´s time to settle the score. It´s time to play Xenosaga part III.

 I went in with an open mind, it´s been 4 years since I had the displeasure of playing Part II, and even though the foul aftertaste isn´t completely gone, I feel ready to tackle this game. Monolith completely killed it with Xenoblade, so maybe, just maybe, they got it right before with Xenosaga III, and hey, it can´t possibly be worse than Xenosaga II!. Where to start... Hmmm.... I´m about 2 hours in, cleared the Prologue and Chapter 1, and so far it feels like Xenogears 2nd disc, not a good omen, since I´m being led cut-scene after cut-scene, heck, Shion even had a pretty long monologue, kinda like when the characters in Xenogears would relate their stories!.
 Also, another thing I disliked, right after the first "mission", what happens in the next scene? Shion in a bikini, ´cause she is on a beach. For no good reason. Right, fanservice is Monolith´s most recurring trend, sigh. They also managed to completely ruin a plot twist, by having a flashback, featuring a character long been dead... and the very next cutscene, set in the present, features one of the Testaments, masked characters, who has the exact same voice, no effort whatsoever to mask the voice. Worth mentioning, but it didn´t affect me at all, characters are using Xenosaga´s lingo, and mentioning places and organizations left and right, so it´s not a good idea to play this one without having played the other ones.
 Now, as to what I liked? The graphics. The models look pretty nice, but what I dig the most are the enviroments. They look really cool, backgrunds are specially good looking. Breaking open objects is back, and it´s satisfying, like in Xenosaga 1!. Voice acting is pretty good too, but I still can´t stand Junior´s voice. Or his attitude. WHO MADE HIM THE LEADER? WHY IS HE BOSSING EVERYONE AROUND?! Please, let Shion be back as the main character... actually, Shion is just as she was in Xenosaga 1 and 2, she only ever thinks of KOS-MOS. Why are the two leads so annoying and plain? Jesus, it´s been two games already, get some character developement, for crying out loud. It has to be said though, that seeing all these characters again, after three years, was kinda.... Until Junior had to show up and boss everyone around, that is.
 Last element I want to mention, combat. Grounded and Air statuses are gone, thank god. However, they did away with the "Combo Attacks", so now you just get a generic attack option, I don´t like this change. Instead of Air and Ground, there´s "Break" status, if you, or the enemy, recieve too much damage, you enter into Break, which leaves you unable to take action for two turns, I didn´t really care for this, so meh. There´s three types of special attacks: Ether, which consume Ether Points, Techs, which also consume Ether Points(Why could´t they share "Ether" menu? Guess I´ll find out) and then there´s... Special Attacks, which consume Boost, yes the boost mechanic is still here and works just like it used to, and if you down an enemy with this attack you get extra XP. Gear battles....erm, E.S. battles are back, and now when attacking you chose from your weapons, instead of Break gauges, you have an Anima Gauge, once charged you can go into Anima Mode and unleash your Anima Attacks. I´m ok with E.S. combat, it´s not as good as Xenogears´, but then again, Xenosaga is not as good as Xenogears.

Month Overview: Game of April

Games completed in April:
Alundra                                                    7
Godzilla: Destroy all Monsters                  6
Strider 2                                                  8
T.R.A.G: Mission of Mercy                      7
Tekken Tag Tournament 2                        10
Alundra 2                                                 7.5
T´ai Fu                                                     8
Ar Tonelico Memory of Elemia                 6
Street Fighter EX 3                                  5
Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring                      9
DarkStalkers 3                                         8
Megaman Star Force 2 Zerker X Ninja    Unrated

 April was a fun month, many good fighting games, even though Street Fighter EX 3 was a 5, I had loads of fun with it, much more than with Godzilla, which was, arguably, the better game. I also got to play T.R.A.G and T´ai Fu, games I´ve held interest on for the longes time, and neither dissapointed. For the Game of the month, TTT 2, Ar Tonelico and Megaman Starforce 2 are unelegible, since I started them months ago, in the case of Ar Tonelico, years.

 Game of April:

 It was short, but my god, T.R.A.G was an amazing game, terribly underrated and unknown. It´s the game that had the biggest impact on me this month, the one I want to replay the most

 Runner-up:

 It´s a fun game, while movement is a bit on the clunky side, the game looks and plays great, it´s one of the most unique fighting games ever.

Archview #20 : Darkstalkers 3

 Number 20? They said I´d never get here. But I did.

  DarkStalkers 3 is a 1 on 1 2D fighting game from Capcom. It´s commonly referred to as "Street Fighter with monsters", but I disagree, DarkStalkers 3 is nothing like Street Fighter, heck, later Street Fighter games took elements FROM Darkstalkers. For instance, there are no rounds, not in the traditional manner, instead, you get two life bars, and once one is depleted, there´s about a second in which neither character can attack, but can move, and then the second "round" starts, and the winner doesn´t get a health refill.
 What it does share in common with Street Fighter is the six-button layout, consisting of Jab, Strong Punch, Fierce Punch, Short,  Forward and Roundhouse. Just like Street Fighter, special moves and EX are done by imputting motions with the direction pad and pressing attacks. Something that Darkstalkers had, before SF 3 and 4 borrowed it, are enhanced attacks, by using some meter and pressing two attack buttons, you can enhance your special moves. Darkstalkers also introduced the Advancing Guard, years before Tatsunoko VS Capcom and MVC 3 used the mechanic. There´s also "Dark Force", you can choose between Change or Power(Both with different properties), and by using one or two energy bars, depending on what type you picked, you can use them in battle, bestowing upon your character special gimmicks and access to new attacks. Interestingly, unlike other fighting games, you can accumulate an infinite amount of energy bars, which lends to the faster speed of this game. Rounds can end in less than 10 seconds, even white health recovers extremely fast, if you don´t get hit.

 There´s 18 different characters, and around 5-7 secret "variations" of some characters, which is a decent amount of characters, specially taking into account how different each character is from the others. From their special moves, to all their different animations, characters in Darkstalkers are full of personality. However, there are few game modes, there´s Arcade, Training, VS and Original Character. Original Character allows you to edit the name and color of a character of your choice, and enhance him as you fight dozens of enemies. This mode is how you unlock the art gallery and the special options... and the special options are worth it, you can make the game play like Vampire Hunter or Vampire Hunter 2, besides allowing other game-changing options. They are worth it.
 The graphics are colorful and vibrant. While the animation isn´t as good as the Arcade version, it still looks good, except Pyron. Pyron got the short end of the stick this time. Regardless, there are loads upon loads of animations and unique "states", like Cut in Half, Burned, Under Demitri´s Attack, under Jedah´s inflation, etc. The music is not my cup of tea, but it doesn´t sound bad, but I´d wish they had harder-sounding tunes to fight with. The translation is a bit iffy at times, but it doesn´t get in the way of the gameplay.

 Darkstalkers 3 is a solid fighting game, it´s only real drawback is the lack of modes, but you can toy around with the ES and DX option in order to shake up the gameplay, so it´s not a bad trade off.
 It´s an 8 out of 10

"First" Archimpressions: Darkstalkers 3

 Wow, much better than I remembered.

 Confession time: While I thought it was alright, I was never really a Darkstalkers fan. True, I wanted a new Darkstalkers game, but that´s because I love new fighting games. It´s been years since I last touched this, or any other Darkstalkers game, and... Holy cow, this game is much better than I remembered!. It doesn´t animate as well as Vampire Savior, it´arcade counterpart, but it has more characters and even with the lack of frames and white blood, it looks great.
 And my god is it fast! Rounds can end up in less, LESS than 10 seconds. And credits where credits are due, this series introduced the EX moves, which now got so popular that even Mortal Kombat and Injustice uses them! So, yeah, awesome fighter.

Archview #19: Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring

 I adore this game.

 Ehrgeiz, better known as that quirky fighter with Final Fantasy VII characters is a 1 on 1 3D fighting game. This is a game that, before I had a PS2, had always wanted to play. I loved Final Fantasy VII, PC version, and seeing the Magazine ads "He is back, and he is not alone" with a page-sized Cloud was oh so enticing. Yes, the FFVII characters were added since the game lacked any kind of brand recognition, and it needed something to make it stand out from the other, superior, and well-stablished fighting games.
 Ehrgeiz system is kinda unique, for instance, you have free movement around the arenas, some even feature higher places you can jump on to, and the camera does a great job at keeping both characters on the screen, as they run around the arena. Blocking is done by standing still, which blocks highs and mid attacks, or by crouching(Default position when "targeting" the enemy), which blocks lows, there are other defensive options, like interrupts which are done by pressing Special just before an special move hits you(These look really cool) or rolling.

 For offensive options you have Low, Mid, High and Special attacks. Special attacks consume a non-chargeable gauge that starts full every round, after it´s wasted, you get a different attack. One really neat feature, is how most characters have totally unique Special attacks, Godhand can place mines or shoot, Cloud pulls out his sword(And gets a new moveset!), Jo becomes a Werewolf, etc. There are two other buttons, Targeting, which targets your enemy, and the jump button. Attacks are very responsive, but moving around can be a bit cumbersome, it´s not too precise which will make you miss some attacks, unless you are targeting.  The game also has plenty of extras. There are 4 different minigames, although I didn´t find them too fun. One of them is just survival mode though, but there´s an Othello clone, a racing mini game and a Beach flag catching thing. they are passable at most, but they are there. There´s also a really cool extra: Forsaken Dungeon. It´s a mini-RPG of sorts, there´s some semblance of story, but it´s just there as window dressing. The game itself however is very engaging, it plays more like a rogue-like than anything, and you are to challenge a 21 floor dungeon as one of two characters. It may sound short, but it´s really challenging and incredibly fun. If you want to save, you are charged a lot, and money is quite hard to come by, and you´ll need it, for repairing your equipment to potions, which are a must and are expensive, unless you want to try your luck with monster drops. And like any good Rogue-likes, there are traps, you might find yourself trapped into a room with no healing items and broken weapons.... If you die once, you get to rescue your character with the 2nd character(Which you must level up individually, and there´s no storage, so no items, unless you care to buy from the expensive salesman). Die before you get to your partner? Game over. And there´s also the fact that stat growth is affected by what you eat... yes, this "mini-game" is surprisingly deep, engaging and fun.

 The graphics are very good, with exceptionally good animations, the movements are very fluid and look great. The music is nothing special, but it´s worth noting that there are remixed versions of FFVII´s main theme and victory theme, so I can´t complain. The character designs range from odd to strange. There´s a Taekwondo fighter whose leg dissapeared(Yup), so he outfitted his stump with a robotic leg that shoots rockets(I´m not making it up), a guy with a prosthetic arm, which conceals a gun, and he even removes the arm and bashes his enemies with it! While all the characters are really unique, in both design and moveset, most Final Fantasy characters are clones. Zack is a clone of Cloud, Yuffie is a clone of Sasuke, Vincent is a clone of Godhand and Tifa might be a clone of Prince Doza, but I´m not too sure.  I think that Ehrgeiz is not a good fighting game, but it is a great game, it´s very  fun and fast, and it has a bunch of extras, including an amazing mini-RPG.
 It´s a 9 out of 10.

Progress Report.

 It´s not a good fighting game, but it is a fun game. I´ve unlocked all characters, most costumes and cleared Arcade Mode with everyone, so I decided to tackle the Forsaken Dungeon... Holy Ess! It´s incredibly hard and fun, it feels like a Roguelike, with al those traps and the need to eat. And you have to eat right. It a balanced diet(Carbs, Lipids, Proteins, etc) and you won´t raise stats as you level up, you have to focus on something, since focusing on one stat, means that another one won´t get raised.... it´s quite challenging. And if you die you get a second chance... to rescue yourself, with your partner character, and with no way to store equipment, s/he will have to do a "naked run" to get the soul of the other character. Challenging, and fun, wish I could stream this! It´d make for a fun romp.

 This is the most fun I´ve ever had with Tetris. All the extra modes are great, and I´m trying to clear them all before marking it down as done. Some of the puzzles get devilishly hard, and puzzle games are not my style, so.... it´s gonna be a while.

 I did not forget about Megaman Starforce, I´m on part 3 now! I just hit a slump since Starforce 2 got so damn boring, it´s easily the worst in the series. It was such a drag that I decided not to do the post game and jump right into Starforce 3, and what a good choice it was. Megaman Starforce 3 is as great as I remembered it, but I´m still 5 hours or so into it. I really don´t know how I managed to 100% Megaman Starforce 2 on my first go through the game, going through the Skylines is such a drag, specially when sidequesting and forced to go back and forth, back and forth.

"First" Archimpressions: Ehrgeiz - God Bless the Ring

 Since I´m on gaming fire today, here´s one more

 Control is a bit odd. Characters are a bit odd too. The controls are a tiny bit odd too. But I like it! A lot. Ehrgeiz is fast, and... better than I remembered it to be! However, unlike the last time I owned this game, I will do the Forsaken Dungeon RPG minigame, and I will clear it. And I will review it. Yes.