First Archimpressions: Rival Schools

 This game is awesome. Seriously, what more can I say?

 This game. Jesus. THIS. GAME. For starters, I love the physics, characters feel heavier than in other fighting games, it's hard to explain, but if you play it you'll notice. Another thing, it's incredibly fast and flui, even the recovery techniques add to the speedy feel, as characters place their hands on the floor, before touching it, and recover from the fall. Even neater, pick two characters from the same school, and you get chapter introductions. Even more neat, there seems to be two "Roads" depending on which partner you picked! Serves just right, as there are two endings per characters.
 It has to be mentioned, the game is hard, even on the easiest settings... until you learn how to play. There's a dodge mechanic, learn to use it. The CPU will block most of your attacks, but time the Dodge right when they use an special move, and you'll get right behind them, with an extra energy bar! Learn to abuse it and you'll outcheap the CPU.
 So far I got the good ending on both Arcade and Evolution discs with Batsu, but Evolution doesn't save the endings you get, so I'll just settle with the bad ones. Hey, they don't even have audio and getting the good ending requires some special measures which aren't necesarilly so easy.
 Almost forgot, the art. There are a 100 art pieces, 50 per disc, and they are shown while the game loads, they are awesome, even if they are in japanese. The art style of the game is also fantastic, the character designs have a very unique style, with big hands and expresive faces. The translation is not as fantastic. You can tell that characters sometimes speak way more than what the subs would have you believe, and if you recognize the japanese words, you can tell took some liberties.
 ONCE I WAKE UP, BUSHIDO BLADE 2 REVIEW, EGADS!

"First" Archimpressions: State of Emergency

 My kind of game.

 This game is amazing. Kinda. Maybe. Maybe not. So, this game is VERY arcadey, specially Chaos mode. Revolution, which is the mode I'm gonna tackle first, feels like GTA on a smaller scale. Certain NPCs give you missions, you complete them, rinse and repeat. The protection missions are a pain in the... they get really hard, as they are relentless. Still, I feel as if that's not the meat of the game.... oh no, that would be Chaos.
 Chaos mode has no story, just different modes. Time Attack(3,5,10 minute variations), Last Clone Standin and unlimited time. In this mode, there are no real missions, but objectives, and weapons spawn on various points throughout the map. This mode is much more fun, but I feel it might be a tad more time consuming(Even though there are a lot of missions in Revolution mode), which is why I left it for later.
 Oh well, first Impressions? I like it a lot.

Archview #32: Robotech: Battlecry

 I tried to draw a Veritech, I really did. But the only image I had, the cover, had it obstructured by the beam rifle. So I gave up. Sorry.

 Robotech: Battlecry is a third person shooter made by the people who would develop the western Earth Defense Force game. Based on the Anime-ish series(Robotech is a mixture of three different anime series, true story) in which you are put in the shoes of Jack Archer, a character created for the game, as he takes on the Zentraedi forces, giant aliens that want to conquer the earth. How would Jack, the giant killer(He actually says this in game), face off against giant enemies? The Veritech. Veritechs are vehicles that can turn into three different modes: Fighter, an airplane, Battloid, takes up on a humanoid shape and Guardian, which is, basically, an airplane with arms and legs.
 If Jack is to survive the game, he will have to make the most of all three forms. The Fighter is the speediest form, and has acces to missles, decoys and barrel rolls. The Barrloid is the slowest and less manuverable of the bunch, but it can shoot missiles with it's machinegun and use a sniper mode. The Guardian  can actually stay on place, which the Fighter can't, and has access to missiles, albeit weaker than the fighter's. All three forms have their uses, and you'll find yourself switching through them as you fight, you will need to. You'll also need to keep an eye out for your rifle, while ammunition(Both missiles and lasers) are unlimited, both are governed by a gauge, so you can't go trigger happy.

 The game is no walk in the park, thankfully you can change the difficulty settings whenever you want. The game starts off easy enough, but later, the enemies get more agressive and smarter. There are 5 chapters with many missions for you to tackle, and the objectives are pretty diverse. Sometimes you may need to hold off a bunch of enemies, protect allies, slaughter all your enemies, carry stuff from one point to another, or just get to the end of the level, so variety is never an issue. The controls will take some time to take used to, boosting while shooting lasers and missiles will never feel truly comfortable, but you'll learn to make do.
 Not only is the game pretty lenghty, there are many unlockables. You can unlock other head models, which actually affect your stats and paint schemes, both original and from the anime series. There's also a multiplayer versus mode with unlockable stages, while little more than a divertion, it has some exclusive units that can only be used in that mode. Finally, there are interviews with the cast from the anime dub, also unlockable, they did go the extra mile.

 Graphics consist on very simple cell shaded forms, but they are incredibly colorful and detailed. The 2-D explotions, while on screenshots they may look awful, in gameplay, they fit the game fantastically. The music is good, nothing too impressive, but the voice acting feels a bit overdone. Every now and then, the game will have some exposition hand-drawn scenes narrated by Jack, these can get quite boring. Sadly, there are audio bugs everywhere, sometimes the audio may skip, sometimes the portraits will get stuck on the screen and the such, they are actually quite common, a put a slight damper on an otherwise neat presentation.

 All in all, Robotech Battlecry is a good game. It's hard, and the audio bugs are impossible to ignore, but there are plenty of extras to keep players interested.
 7.5 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: Justice League Heroes

 This is no Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

 So I just started the co-op mode with my sister and played a bunch through it. It's fine, but it gets a bit repetitive. It's cool how you can customize the different skills, but you will stick mostly to mashing X and O. The worst part about the game, is how most stages forces a certain team on the player, it makes sense, since sometimes there are puzzles related to the character, but these missions are the majority, not the minority, so it's a bit annoying when you want to play as a certain character.
 I didn't really pay much attention to the music,audio or story(It was co-op, who's paying attention to the story?!), but I could tell certain quotes are repeated a bit too frequently(Superman, stop saying Super!) and Batman's deffinitely not voiced by Kevin Conroy.
 As a whole, it feels like a decent time waster, but I believe MUA is the superior game, and both games are very similar, so they can be compared. MUA has a bigger roster(MUA takes character from Marvel itself, JLH from the Justice League(Which means no Nightwing)), MUA has more powers per character and more costumes per characters. Speaking of costumes, unlockable characters get none, and I fear they only have 4 skills instead of 5. And what's up with Hal and Kyle occupying different slots when they play exactly like John?

"First" Archimpressions: Bushido Blade 2

 There's nothing like this out there.

 Sweet mother of jesus, this game knows how to get you tense. When your life could be over in your next attack, you really start being careful "Am I close enough?", "Is he gonna parry?", "What if he attacks now?!" and other questions. It's even worse when you are playing as a sub-character, where defeat means having to start all over, if you want to unlock him/her.
 What baffles me the most, is how the six default characters have a unique costume for Story mode, yet use another one on the other modes, Tatsumi's schoolboy costume is not as good as his story mode costume. Speaking of costume, the character designs are hideous. The art itself looks pretty amateurish, and the designs look as if they have no rhyme or reason! THERE'S A GUY WITH AN AFRO ON A RONIN GAME. Ronins? Eh, assassins fits the bill better, me thinks.
 Regardless, I'm loving the game. Onwards!

Archview #31: Injustice: Gods Among Us

 Also known as Batjustice: Batman Among Us.

 Injustice is the latest fighting game from NetherRealm, the developers of Mortal Kombat(And they will have you know it by writing "From the creators of Mortal Kombat: Injustice" every chance they get!). For this outing, they decided to try something different, instead of being your usual fighting game, they added stage transitions and interactives. The game is confined to the 2.5 D realm though, and just like MK, borrows attack strings from 3D fighters like Tekken or Virtua Fighter, while borrowing command specials from 2D fighters like Street Fighter or King of Fighters.
 There's four primary actions: Weak Attack, Medium Attack, Strong Attack and a unique Trait. Traits range from buffs to actual attacks depending on the fighter, admitedly, I expected something a bit more... unique, like Blazblue, as most Traits are merely buffs, but it's still a neat idea. Best of all, NetherRealm Studios made this game Arcade Stick friendly! Actions like grabbing no longer take up a button, you can press Medium Attack+Strong Attack to grab. Stage interactives are performed via their own button or Medium+Strong. There are two other buttons, Flip Stance and Meter Burn, press them together to use the Super Move(Which consumes the full Meter bar). Meter Burn is pressed after inputing a Special Move to enhance it, it's anything from adding knockback to adding attacks, and you can pushblock too, by pressing it while blocking. Flip Stance looks useless, but certain combos only work on certain stances.

 The game borrows the 2 health bars 1 round system from DarkStalkers, so fights can go by quite fast. It seems NetherRealm wanted to attract Street Fighter players, as blocking is now done by holding back, and the game is much faster than Mortal Kombat, and it's much more combo-friendly. You can also change the controls in order to turn the MK motions for Special moves into Street Fighter motions(Turn Down,Forward+Punch into quarter circle+punch).
 Interestingly, overhead moves are now universally performed by pressing Strong+Forward. Strong+Back has two functions, first it causes the oponent to rebound from the edge of the screen, providing juggling opportunities, but, perform it close to the edge of certain stages and you'll inititate a stage transition. Stage transitions are very damaging, but after a while tend to last just a bit too much. The game introduces a "Clash" mechanic, or wager, usable when you are on your 2nd life bar, by pressing Forward+Meter Burn when you are hit, you'll engage in a clash. By waging your meter you can regain health(If you outwage your enemy) or get damaged if you lose.

 The game uses MK's engine, so visually, it looks quite similar. The character designs can be hit or miss, some disliked the new armored look, I dig it. The models themselves get the job done, but couple of them could've been better, right Wonder Woman? Her official render is stuff from nightmares. Regardless, it shows that NetherRealm is getting better with animations, while there are a few stinkers here and there, most of the animations are really nice, and some are surprisingly fluid. The stages are very interesting however, and they get destroyed as you fight, which is kinda cool. While it's clear that they were going for a dark setting, there's a notorious lack of color. Every color is very light, even the Green and Yellow lanterns, and it haves an overall washed out look, it is a very dark game.
 I can't really comment on the music, since it's too low, you can barely tell it's there! On the other hand, voice acting is fantastic. They managed to get Kevin Conroy, and most characters are voiced by people that voiced them previously on other media! The sound effects sound as if they came straight from Mortal Kombat 9, and they get the job done.

 There are many modes, stand-out among them is the Story mode. While shorter, it feels a lot tighter than Mortal Kombat, though you might need to be a comic book fan in order to enjoy it the most(Parallel universes), and those that have been reading the prequel comic book might feel a bit disappointed with the direction they took. The next Single Player mode is called S.T.A.R. Labs, a series of 240 missions themed about the 24 characters. Some of the missions are actually mini games, like dodging missiles or flying through the air while avoiding flaming rocks, they are not exactly engaging, but their inclusion doesn't hurt. There's also Arcade, where each character has his/her own ending and Versus(Both online and offline).
 As for unlockables, there are loads. There's about 20 different Arcade mode variations, like "Heroes only", "Survival", "Mysterious buffs and debuffs per round", "Infinite meter" and a lot of others. You can also unlock concept art(Which is pretty nice, by the by) and alternate costumes. For the costumes themselves, while NetherRealm is providing paid DLC costumes, there are not many free costumes. Few characters get three costumes, while each one has at least a Regime and Insurgency costume. Problem is, on most characters, Regime and Insurgency are pretty similar. You can play as Flash or a slightly different flash. Aquaman or a slightly different Flash with beard. Armored Batman or even more armored Batman. Worst of all, alternate colors. There's only one alternate color per character, but the differences are in the shade. You can be Red Flash or a slightly different shade of red flash. It feels as a bit of a missed opportunity, as they could have made cameos with Colors(Dr.Zoom Flash? Red/Blue alternative for each Nightwing Costumes?).

 Lastly, each character has only 1 win pose, and they are a bit on the long side, so they might get a bit boring. The first couple of times Joker burns his opponent are awesome, the next couple of times where you have to sit and wait 'till he is done to pick rematch or character select are not. Also, unlocking stuff can get a bit long in the tooth, the game uses a "Level up" system, as you play you earn experience, every time you level up you are entiltled to 1 or 2 unlocks of your choice. Let's just say that there's enough stuff locked to last you a loooong time, from the costumes and arcade ladders, to galleries, avatars and music. But after you reach level 50, leveling up starts to take a long time.
 Injustice: God Among Us is a great game, there's few real complaints to be had, and everything it does, it does it very well. Easily the best fighter released this year.
8 out of 10

"First" Archimpressions: Robotech Battlecry

 It's oh so good.

 I remembered this game being fun, and fun it is. Just cleared the first chapter, and it was a lot of fun... except that boss, jesus. To be fair, when I went to lower the difficulty to easy I found out that I was playing on hard all along, not cute, not cute at all.
 For the first time ever I get to watch the story! And my god is it a borefest, I'm ever tempted to just skip them, but I won't, I'm better than that. Well, there isn't much more left to say, it's as good as I remembered it, so I'm expecting a favorable outcome, ranging from 7-8, just how bad could it get?(In before the next missions are repetitive shooting galleries, god no).

Archview #30: Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore

 That was fast.

 The game that made bouncy breasts popular! Even though DoA 1 had it too, it didn't become so hilariously obcene 'till DoA 2, but I digress. This is a 3D fighting game that relies less on finesse, but pretends to give a more... entertaining experience. That's why it's such a fast-paced game, with emphasis on flashy moves and pretty graphics that still hold up to this day!.
 DoA 1 had it's roots with Virtua Fighter, and it holds true for DoA 2, however, it's a much faster game. You've one punch button and one kick button, pressing various combinations of both provides strings, just like Virtua Fighter. There's also a "Free" button, which is used for free movement, guarding and holding. By stanging still when you press it, the character will guard. By pressing Guard+Back(Upback or downback for higher and lower attacks), your character will initiate a hold, time it right and you will counter your opponent's attack You can use Hold commands even while being subject to an attack string, which is why Juggling is so important in this game, if your oponent's feet are on the air, they can't try to hold your moves. Characters also have access to grabs by pressing Free+Punch.

 DoA 2 was one of the, if not the first, fighters to include "Transitions". Using a knockback move on an opponent against a wall will send them flying through it into another part of the stage. Some stages also have "Danger Zones", knock an enemy onto one and you'll deal loads of damage. The game has Story Mode, which is an Arcade mode with the ocassional in-game engine cutscene every now and then, there's no loading times between battles, which is quite awesome. Then there's Versus, Time Attack, Survival and Tag Mode. Surprisingly, Tag Mode is nicely fleshed out, with special Tag throws, some character duos even get special tag moves.
 Graphicwise, while not incredibly detailed, the character models are pretty good and smooth. The faces are a bit weird, but not too jarring. The attack animations are incredibly fluid, specially when moves are countered, strangely, some of the Win Poses feel a bit... stiff, different animators maybe? Voice Acting is passable, both on the English and the Japanese dub, but the soundtrack is fantastic. Each of the 14 characters have their own moveset(Well, Bayman and Leon are clones) and they are pretty long. There are about 6 costumes per character too, and most of them must be unlocked, so there's plenty of replay value.

 DoA 2 is not the most technical of fighters, but it's a fun pick-up-and-play alternative to Tekken, you can just grab the controller and start pulling of 5-hit combos from the get go, and the Hold mechanic is a fun gimmick, if a bit casual.

 8 out of 10.

New adquisitions!

 Eh... lots of them

 Let's see....

 DoA 2: Hardcore: Actually a replacement disc, but I will play it again and review it. The copy I have was a used copy from Gamestop, came with the console. It actuall runs quite fine, but it's incredibly scratched and won't run the CG gallery. Besides, no Instruction Booklet... 'till now!

 Robotech: Battlecry: I loved this game. I never watched Macross nor Robotech nor anything, but I loved this game, and I'm not into airplane shooting games either, guess morphing into a Mech helps!

 Rival Schools: I knew about this game, but I was never interested in it.... 'till I played it's demo included in Pocket Fighter. I think I had more fun with that demo than with the game itself. It was insane, all this ground recoveries, and it was so fast! And it looked nice, albet blocky. Ah well, I got the Rival Schools 2 game, japanese only, and I loved it. And I guess I won't be missing Eiji and Ran(I think those were their names? The Swimmer and the Camera girl).

 State of Emergency: True, I was part of the million of suckers who read "Rockstar" and thought, for the longest time, that it was developed by them. REGARDLESS, I enjoyed the game for what it was. I even had the PC version.

 Bushido Blade 2: I can't wait to play this one. Which is why I will probably leave it for later. I loved this game, like most of the games I purchased this time, heh.

 The Legend of Dragoon: I actually didn't like this game very much. Surprsing, as it has a red-associated main character, who controls flame, wields a sword, is related to Dragons and has an alternate form. That's like my recipie for Love. I always felt the game was a bit of a drag as it made you re-treck through dungeons, if they were on your way. Also, I think I found some of the bosses a bit hard. However, a Man's gotta do what a Man's gotta do, and if that means beating LoD and finally reach a final judgement, then so be it.

 I will probably tackle these games in this order:
DoA 2, Robotech, State of Emergency, Rival Schools, Bushido Blade 2 and then... Legend of Dragoon.

Archview #29: Dynasty Warriors

 So underwhelming...

 Set in ancient China, around 1800 years ago, Dynasty Warriors presents itself as a 3D one on one weapon-based fighting game. The game is pretty different from other games of it's ilk, however. The game is played with four buttons, two buttons do the attacking(Thrusting and Slashing) and the other two provide the defense, parry and deflect. Slashes are to be parried, and thrusts deflected, do it right, and you'll open up your enemy for an attack, time it wrong or choose the wrong counter and you'll be open for attack. There's also blocking, done by inputing nothing or holding back, like other fighters.
 There are other functions, like grabbing, by pressing both attack buttons and sidestepping, by pressing both defense buttons. By attacking at the same time as your opponent, you'll initiate a clash, however mashes the most buttons wins and opens up the enemy for a counterattack. There's also Chi bars on the bottom of the screen for both fighters. It charges steadily as you stay on the offense and hit your opponent, getting blocked or backing away makes it decrease. Once it's filled, a green light turns red, and you are allowed to use a Musou Attack, the bar will decrease steadily, so it's a use it or lose it situation. If you are on the last 30% of your HP bar, the Musou Attack will be enhanced. Musou Attacks are performed the same way for every character, and there's two of them per character.

 The presentations is pretty lackluster, models are very blocky and the animations are merely serviceable. The character themselves look bland and lack any sort of personality, heck, they only have one win pose. And their movesets? Disappointingly short. To add insult to injury, the stages are boring. They consist of a infinite floor and a low res background image, sometimes it's hard to tell what that image is supposed to be. On the other hand, the soundtrack is pretty engaging, it's not the kind of music that would be used in future Dynasty Warriors games, but it's pretty good nontheless.
 As for modes, they played it safe with the usual "Arcade, Versus, Time Attack, Team Battle, Survival", y'know, the classics. There's a total of 16 characters, 10 default characters, 3 unlockable characters(Via beating the game with the default characters) and 3 bonus characters. The bonus characters are clones from other characters and are unlocked via button presses.
 All in all, Dynasty Warriors is a pretty mediocre game, it tries to do it's own thing, and while it gets commended for it, originality doesn't make up for fun.
 5 out of 10.

First Archimpressions: Dynasty Warriors

 Oooooh boy...

 As I read the instruction booklet, and saw how it only had two attack buttons, but two defense buttons, I expected to find a really good and original, but forgotten, fighting game. I'm afraid that won't be the case. So I just finished the Arcade mode twice, with Zhao Yun and Guan Yu and... golly. For starters, each characters has such a small movelist, and the only way to access it is the... instruction booklet. Movement is very clunky, feels like Toshinden(And Toshinden is the definition of clunky).
 The character designs are really lame. They lack personality and some of them looks so generic... It's astounding how this game fathered the Dynasty Warriors game. Ah well, I'ma keep on keeping on, maybe as I get more comfortable with the game, it might turn out to be fun, but I can't see it happening.

Archview #28: War of the Monsters

 I took no notes while playing this(GG) so I hope I remember everything....

 War of the Monsters is an arena-based fighting game for up to four monsters at the same time. As your monster of choice, you are placed on a large arena, filled with climbable buildings and loads of throwables, ranging from cars to statues, heck, you can impale other monsters on antennas! As previously stated, monsters can impact the environment on many ways, almost every structure is destructible, almost every medium-sized object can be grabbed and thrown or hit the enemy with. The object of the game is to defeat the other monsters, no matter the mode you are in.
 Speaking of modes, there's not a whole lot of them, in singleplayer you have Adventure, Endurance and Free for all, while on multiplayer you have three unlockable minigames and versus. Still, the game itself is very entertaining, so the lack of modes is not a huge deal. Excepting the mini-games, the game plays the same on every mode. Each monster has a projectile attack, weak and strong attacks, jump, block, strafing, a  close-range special attack and a long range special attack. Each of them plays very different from each other as well, with different combo strings, attack speeds and damages. The only real similarity is the close/range special move which always turns into some enveloping-kind of explosion.

 Besides the interactive objects, there are power-ups spread across the stage. Some may be hidden behind buildings, some lurk at plain sight, and they respawn frequently. These range from health-restoring pick ups(In 5%, 25% and 100% varieties), stamina restoring pick ups, Special Attacks and cloaking devices. Regarding Stamina, each monster has a blue-bar that depletes as it attacks(Projectile attacks usually consume a lot of Stamina), and you can restore it by not attacking for a while, grabbing the stamina power up, throwing or attacking with items or by killing monsters. You can actually go beyond the 100% with pick ups, and if you do so, you are granted an Special attack for free.
 It has to be said, while the game itself is very fast, and feels very arcadey(Which I love), the CPU is a bit of a bastard.... frustratingly so. During Adventure Mode, whenever it gets below half HP, it will run directly towards the healing items, if it's a faster monster than you, have fun taking it's life away. Again. Even worse, on battle with more than 2 monsters, the CPU will always gang up on you, and when one goes to grab the health pick ups, the other one will do it's darnedest to hold you in place, very annoying. It's in your best interest to take the 100% and 25% health restores as soon as possible(Take some damage so as to be able to use them) so that they may not take them.

 Visually, it has an almost cartoonish look. Each monster is very different from the others, and they look fantastic. Each of them has 3 unlockable costumes, for a total of 4, and the fourth ones go crazy, some are almost entire redesigns. There's also little details, like small pedestrians running away, and if you step on them, tiny blood splatters will appear on the ground. The music pays homage to the Kaijuu genre, even the monsters shrieks and roars are very fitting. The game is a big love letter towards the Kaijuu genre, from the looks to the sounds to the monster backstories!
 There really are few bad things to be said about the game. Maybe 10 monsters is a bit small for a roster, but they are very distinct. Maybe the fact that the AI is a bastard, but on Multiplayer, the game is a blast. Maybe it could've used more modes? Sure, but the game is so much fun that you won't need more modes. All in all, War of the Monsters is a great game, criminally forgotten.
 It's an 8 out of 10.

Progress Report 6/10/13

 Status:

 Injustice: Woot! All misions finally done! They were... eh, I didn´t really care about them, but at least they are there. Now I´ma tackle Battle mode, objective? Try each mode at least once, attain all endings, get all costumes.

 War of the Monsters: Completed! Well, as much as I could. Turns out I need a Twisted Metal Black savefile to unlock Agamo´s last costume. I didn´t try the mini-games, since I need another person to try them AND who would I convince to try them out when the game itself is so much fun? Review later today or tomorrow.

 Next Gamez: SMT: DS 2? I need to finish it, dammit!. This week I should be getting a couple of PS1 games, I think I might want to replay Bushido Blade 2. Maybe. Perhaps. Mayhaps.

"First" Archimpressions: War of the Monsters

 Coming from Godzilla:DoM, it´s like night and day...

 Holy... This game is amazing. First of all, both Godzilla:DoM and and War of the Monsters show a tremendous amount of love towards Kaijuu films, but they took very different directions. While Godzilla feels slower, and heavier, they went for a very arcade-like feel with War of the Monsters, which I felt payed off much better.

 The game looks gorgeous, enviroments are HUGE, and monsters can interact with almost everything. Buildings and walls can be climbed, rocks and civilian cars can be used as weapons, heck, you can even impale enemies with antenas and other props. Each character also has 4 costumes, sadly, one of the most awesome skins requires a Twisted Metal Black savefile, a game I no longer own, but I think the skin is worth it...

 Anyways, there´s one thing that keeps getting on my nerves though... on free for all, the CPUs gang up on you. Adventure mode can prove to be annoying due to it. Imagine, you almost slay a monster, and the other one comes, the weakened CPU goes after health, which they always do and know where to find, while the other one stalls you. It´s not fun. Gladly, it´s my only gripe.

Archview #27: Legacy of Kain : Blood Omen 2

 Now that is how you suck blood.

 Blood Omen 2 is a third person action game in which you play as a depowered Kain. After a war between the vampires, led by Kain, and the Sarafan Lord, Kain was slain, and his sword, the Soul Reaver, taken from him. Years later, Nosgoth is under the rule of the Sarafan Lord, and Kain is revived in order to aid the Vampire Resistance take him down.
 To do battle, Kain has access to Claws, the natural weapon of all vampires, but he can also take the weapons of his fallen enemies. Every weapon has a 3-hit combo, only varying in speed and damage. The combat itself feels a bit wonky, colision detection is iffy, and most battles are dealt with in the same manner: Avoid Yellow and Red attacks, block 2 or 3 normal attacks, and then counter attack with your combo. Bosses, however, are more puzzle-like in nature, requiring your to use your enviroment or your vampiric powers to take them down.

 Thoughout the 11 chapter adventure, Kain will regain access to his powers, 5 in total, which must be used to complete the many puzzles that lay ahead. Kain can blend into misty areas, which allow him to score stealth kills, "Charm" civilian-enemies in order to have them push levers, Telekinesis, which is used to activate certain switches and a long-range jump. Where you must use what is always very clear, albeit some puzzles may take a couple of minutes to figure out. Kain can also suck the blood out of his dead enemies to heal himself, and he is constantly losing HP, so it is a must. Interestingly enough, there are loads of harmless civilians around the stages, but weather they die or not is entirely up to the player, with no negative consecuence of any kind.
 The AI in this game is really bad. Civilians will run away if they see Kain doing shady stuff, but even if you kill someone in front of them, after a couple of seconds they will have forgoten everything about it. The enemies are a bit smarter, but they are prone to... questionable stuff, like not reacting to seeing an ally die right next to them.

 This is a very ugly game. Models are very ugly, specially the hands. Everyone has malformed hands, and the fingers are spikes, even on human characters. Everyone but Kain has some of the lamest and most uninspired designs I´ve seen. On the other hand, the cities of Nosgoth are very engaging, and look very nice. The few chapters that take place outside the city are not as interesing though. Music is used sparingly, and it´s nothing special. Voice acting is a mixed bag, Kain is astoundingly good, but the rest or the cast are either good or really bad. The dialogue is also a mixed bag, some lines are incredibly good, some are cheesy and some are borderline stupid.
 The game has plenty of design flaws, specially the controls. Blood Omen 2 uses the Resident Evil style controls, which means that Kain moves like a tank, and in a fast-paced game, where you´ll be facing off in melee combat against up to three enemies at the same time, it´s not fun. And attacking? You can´t attack unless you are targeting the enemy, which is just dumb. Something that left me scratching my head is when they placed misty areas.... next to an enemy that can detect Kain even when cloaked. What´s the point of the mist? Geez.... Oh, and checkpoints are placed in the most random areas. Sometimes they could be just a room away, other times you´ll be wishing for one, and the thing that makes this even more annoying? Unskippable cut-scenes. Died after a long cut-scene? You´ll have to watch it again, and some can get quite boring.

 Bottom line, Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2 is not a bad game. It´s also not a particularly good one either, it´s just... there. You are not missing anything by skipping it, but it´s no Xenosaga.
6 out of 10

Progress Report 6/3/13

 Well, because, why not? I might make Progress Reports a weekly thing. So, right now I´m playing two games: LoK: Blood Omen 2 and Injustice, and here´s the skinny:

 Blood Omen 2: It´s clunky, in a lot of ways, but it´s really fun. I just started chapter 7, out of 11 I believe, so I´m nearing it´s end. Kinda.

 Injustice: After completing Story Mode, instead of tackling the "Battle Mode" I went to the Star Labs. I just finished Deathstroke´s missions(Which means I´ll deal with mission 81/240 next) and... dunno. Some of the missions are kinda interesting, the ones where you have to fight while avoiding stuff or the such. The mini-game type missions however, are a pain in the... I mean, most of them are meh, but they had the Dual Shock 3 in mind. By Harley´s shooting Gallery I said "Eff it" and switched to the pad. Thing is, when I see a Squarem and I have to press it, my finger memory reacts to the shape, whereas when using a Stick I´ve to think first about which button stands for the square... not nice. And Shazam´s last mission?... Le no.

 After I´m done with either of them, I think I´ll take War of the Monsters for a ride. I loved that game so much. Also, any day now I will tackle Devil Summoner 2´s last boss. I started this game last year, but I never finished. The last boss kicked my butt, so I fused loads of new demons, with Physical resistances but never went for the rematch. Any day now.

Archview #26: Chrono Cross

 Not as incredible as I remembered it....

 Chrono Cross is a game I remembered fondly. It was one of the first PS1 games I bought, and if I remember correctly, even before I had the means to play it. I was so hyped, Squaresoft, the creator of FF 7 and 8, which I loved as a kid. The magazines were being so kind it... and when I played it? Let´s just say that my first, and to this day favored, e-mail adress was based off the title of the game. Yes, I loved Chrono Cross.
 This game is a follow up to Chrono Trigger, it´s set 20 years after it, but you wouldn´t know it, since the setting, El Nido archipielago, wasn´t featured in Trigger. Regardless, mentions to beings and characters to that game are everywhere. Instead of travelling through time, Serge and his party get to travel through two opposite worlds, opposite in the sense that different decisions were made, for example, in one world a certain NPC chose to focus on doing what he wanted for a living, thus, he is poor. In the other world, however, the very same NPC veered towards what made money, instead of what he loved, thus he is rich. It´s a very interesting premise, and an excuse to reuse dungeons, but further into the game it takes a turn for the convoluted. It goes all Sci-fi with black hole generators, computers that control humanity and the such.

 The game plays like most other JRPGs, you go from town to town talking to NPCs while tackling the usual assortment of dungeons. But it does have a few distinctive features, for starters, equipment is not bought but made. Actually, you need the materials to craft it and the money to pay for it, this means that you will have to grind to get these materials. Funnily enough, the game touts that it does away with grinding, which is quite false. There are no "levels" in the straight sense, instead, you collect Growth Stars from most of the bosses. With each Growth Star your stats increase a bit, however, any character that is KOed won´t get any stat boost. After each Growth Star you can go into 5-6 encounters, which are not random, monsters roam the dungeons and you can avid them, and get minimal stat boosts from them. Get another star before completing the 5-6 encounter cycle? Too bad, those bonuses are gone forever.
 The combat system is actually kinda interesting. It´s a bit like Xenogears, you get 7.0 Stamina, and you can choose to use a Weak Attack(Consumes 1.0 Stamina), Medium(2.0 Stamina) and Strong(3.0). The stronger the blow, the easier it is for it to miss, however, if you pummel the enemy with weaker attacks, the accuracy rating for the other attacks increases. Enemies can break out of your combo before you use up all your stamina, so if you were building up the accuracy percentage for a Strong Blow, but get interrupted, it´s all gone. Sometimes, sometimes it´s not, it´s odd. There are no conventional Turns in the game, instead, you can interrupt a combo whenever you want and have another character attack. The party recharges stamina as other members or enemies attack. Every time you hit an enemy, besides boosting the accuracy, you also increase your "Element" level, which allows you to use "Elements"(Magic).

 Elements are made up of three objects: "Items", "Spells" and "Techs". There are 3 unique Techs per character, but the one-use elements(Items) and the "Spells"(Which can only be used once per battle) are completely customizable by the player. Each character has their own grid upon which to place the elements though, some may have lots of slots on the earlier levels, while some have a lot on the latter, etc.
 Each character and each enemy has a elemental affinity(Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black and White). Red opposes Blue, Yellow opposes Green and Black opposes White. Characters of opposing elements deal and recieve double damage from the opposing element. Also, during battles, on the top left corner there is a circle made up of three circles, which represents the elements of the enviroment, each time an element is used, the color of the element gets put on the inner circle, pushing out the other elements outwards. By filling the circles with a certain color, you make Elements and characters of said color stronger, and weaken the ones of the opposite color. Yeah, the combat is pretty nuanced, but it´s actually quite fun, even if the lack of experience points make it feel a bit hollow.

 The game is very colorful, from characters to enviroments, the game oozes color everywhere. There are over 40 playable characters, and the designs are very hit or miss. As for the enemies, most of the bosses are alright, but most of the common non-human enemies look very silly and harmless, a bit of a bummer. The music is... amazing, right up there with Xenogears. There are loads of tunes, and each piece is very unique and memorable, some tunes are still stuck up on my mind!
 There is a problem with having so many characters... some get almost none character developement. Most of the Acacia Dragoons get their fair share of screen time(If you recluted them!), but the rest of the other characters are lucky if they get a little scene with their other world counterpart or when they find their third tech. There´s a bunch of endings depending on when you tackle the last boss, like Chrono Trigger!, and there are 2 forks during the game. Sadly, both times all roads lead to the same conclussion, it only changes what characters join you and which dungeon you tackle, which is a bit of a shame.
 Chrono Cross is a great game, but the PS1 had lots of great JRPGs, so that´s not saying much. It is quite interesting, and worth at least one playthrough, but I think Young Archile was victim to the hype...
8 out of 10.

"First" Archimpressions: Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2

 Yes, this means Chrono Cross is finished and awaiting judgement.

 I remember loving this game as a kid, so of course I had to get it. Just cleared chapter 1, controls are kinda wonky, but they are serviceable. Combat is a bit blander than what I remembered, but it gets the job done. One thing I love is drinking blood, they made it oh so satisfying, it feels so good you kinda don´t care about the inocents!.
 It feels very... early Ps2ish with a mix of PCish port. It´s hard to put into words, but it definitly feels like that(I´m not crazy). Two big dislikes? No subtitles, not that I mind since the voice actors are pretty good and deliver their lines very clearly, but with my TV(It´s crazy, I swear) who knows.... I also hate how the Right Analog stick camera control is inverted, and there is no option to change it. Not cool.

Month Overview: Game of May

 Games completed in May:
Xenosaga 3      7
Tetris DS          8
Destrega           5
Xenogears        9
Dragon Valor   7.5

 May was a slow month, not many games. I finally slew my personal demon: The Xenosaga series, and as a bonus, got through Xenogears. It´s a bit of a stretch to include Tetris DS, since I did most of it during april, but I felt it would be a barren month without it, shucks!.

 Game of May:

 Easy. I´ve adored this game since I saw an Xpert Gamer article years ago and I learned of it´s existence. I have played this game many times before, and reached Deus(The last dungeon) at least once, but this was the first time that I´ve ever finished it. The ending did not dissapoint. What did dissapoint was the 2nd disc, it makes one wonder just how much better it could´ve been, and even with such a rushed 2nd disc, it still manages to make sense(Kinda) and be an all-around fantastic game.

Runner-up:

 It didn´t have much competition, but even so, Dragon Valor stands as a criminally underrated game. It´s not a "hidden gem", but it is above the par. It is a fun game, a bit repetitive, but it´s fun. And hey, it makes more sense than Xenosaga!

First Archimpressions: Injustice: Gods among us.

 It´s good. Really, really gooooooood.

 Just finished story-mode, it was great, albeit the comic implied a different... direction, the story was pretty good, despite some oddities(Superman shooting down cars, passenger included? Aquaman would fight Insurgency Superman but not Regime Superman?). As for the game itself, I love it. It´s fast, like, really really fast, much faster than Mortal Kombat, and I dig the speed. Other things I liked, is that Throw and Interact are button combinations, makes it easier to do on an Arcade Stick(seriously, having a separate button for throwing and enhancing in MK 9 was annoying, and MK VS DC? The horror...).
 The game´s most impressive feat, personally, is how they reworked the characters from MK VS DC. MK VS DC had awful and stiff animations and stupid attacks(Don´t let me get started on the stripper that cosplays as Wonder Woman...). Well, Injustice remade all the characters movements, and the animations are even better than MK 9. There´s still the one odd looking kick or punch, but they are the exception, heck, some animations, like getting hit by Aquaman´s trident, look incredibly fluid.
 So, yeah, awesome game, gonna keep on playin´, on tandem with Chrono Cross!