Archview #45: Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition

 Can I have the port of Real Bout 3 for PS1 please? You can keep this one in Japan.

 Lo and behold, one of SNK's earlier 3D fighters! The victim to the 3D treatment this time is Fatal Fury, and while it's not great, it could've been much, much worse.
 The game retains the Punch, Kick, Strong and Evade buttons from the 2D installments, however, the evade button instead of throwing you to the back plane, produces a side step of sorts, more like a roll really. The game has 2D roots so, naturally, it has an energy gauge that allows for special attacks. At the beginning of each match, the gauge starts at 50%, taking damage reduces it and dealing it increases it, however, the gauge will always try to stay at 50%, which means that if it falls below, it will raise slowly, and if it's above, it will decrease slowly, untill you max it out that is. Reaching 0% leaves you dizzy, while having it at "MAX" allows for Super and Overdrive moves. Overdrive moves consume much more gauge, but in turn deal massive damage. By using a bit of gauge, you can also use a counterattack, executed while blocking, and a "Fierce" attack that leaves the opponent dizzy.

 As for modes, there's only: Arcade, VS, Team Battle and Training, not a whole lot to do. For what it's worth, there's a couple of cutscenes during Arcade Mode, reminicent of the original Fatal Fury, plus, each character has an ending... that lasts 5-10 seconds and makes absolutely no sense, most of them anyways. As for the roster, there are 12 default characters and two unlockable ones, of these 14, 2 are new comers to the Fatal Fury Universe(3 if you include Mr.Karate(Ryo)). It's a bit disappointing, since Fatal Fury has a nice cast of characters that skipped this installment, where the hell is Blue Mary or Cheng?
 The game looks very decent, stages are the usual, for the PS1, endless 3D stages with 2D backdrops, at least they look quite nice, albeit a bit boring. Characters look really good, if a bit simple, but some animations feel a bit awkward. Then there's the official art for the game that actuall looks quite cool and unique, specially the loading screens. The music is very dull, and sound effects lack oomph, to top it off, voice samples are really low quality. All in all, the game itself feels as if it lacks... something.

 All in all, it's not a terrible game, and on the flipside, considering other 3D fighters from SNK and the 90s, the game could've been much, much worse.
 5 outta 10.

Archview #44: Dynasty Warriors 6

 Not as bad as they make it out to be, for real!

 Dynasty Warriors 6 is often times considered the black sheep of the series. For this entry Koei decided to change a lot of stuff, and while not all of it was for the best, some ideas were actually kinda good, yet never to be seen again. As per usual, before DW 7, you are to take control of one general and follow their story throught the "Three Kingdoms" era of ancient China, albeit all stories end with a "What if" ending.
 For starters, there are three different modes: Musou Mode(The story mode, only 17 out of the 41 characters get one), Free Mode(Replay any stage with any character) and Challenge mode. Challenge mode is more of a novelty, in which you can take one out of six challenges(Beat enemies without getting hit, collect items while avoiding horses, break stuff, etc) and compare your scores online. Truth be told, this mode is pretty sucky and no wonder it was never revisited again.

 As with every entry in the franchise, each stage is a battle of two armies(Rarely three), and you are a general on one of these armies. Your goal is, usually, to wipe out the main general of the other army before they kill yours, these usually means mowing down hundreds of units. Gone are the charge moves of previous games, here the Renbu system is introduced. You have two independant attack strings, a Square combo string and a more powerful, and shorter, Triangle string. Hitting enemies rises a gauge on the bottom left corner of the screen, and every time it gets full, you go up a level, which makes both strings longer. If you take damage, or don't hit anything for a while, the Renbu level drops. A lot of people made a big deal out the Renbu system, and while I'd take a traditional Warriors game any day, the Renbu sytem is not as bad as they make it out to be. Interestingly, generals now have "Grapple attacks", and by grabbing Tomes(Random enemy drops) you can use special attacks, these two features were, sadly, dropped in later installments. Finally, characters can also evade, Samurai Warriors style, but once again, this was dropped by DW 7.
 As for the stages themselves, now there is an emphasis on Sieging! Basically it boils down to defeating certain enemies, so that engineers can begin building ramming weapons, to bring down heavy gates, and ladders, so that you may climb up the wals and take down ballistas and archers. It's a lot more fun than it sounds, really, although it may wear out it's welcome after a while. Spread throughout the stages there are enemy bases, which spawn lesser enemies, that you can conquer, by bringing down their doors(You can break these by simply attacking them) and then defeating a ser amount of enemies. It's usually a good idea to do so, since inside these healing items spawn regularily and you just might need them.

 Graphically, the game is a bit of a let down. It might've seemed prettier at launch, but DW 7 completely blew it out of the water, regardless, most characters look alright, heck, these might be some of my favorite redesigns, and the models do them justice. Stages on the other hand look kinda cool, until you look closely at some of the textures... also, some of the special effects, like water, are just laughable. On the flip side, I'm pretty sure there are more units on screen than even DW7, but there tends to be heavy slowdown when it gets hectic. Music is, as per usual, fantastic and voice acting, as per usual, is spotty. There are some decent voice acting, but some of it is just awful(In a so bad it's good kind of way).
 There are plenty of characters to unlock, albeit most of them are clones and some of the unlock conditions can be a bit obscure, most of the time it consists on succeeding on some of the targets each stage has(3 targets per stage), but the game won't aid you. While some characters may be clones, their skill trees are unique, thankfully, but raising them to level 50 will take some time, though there are no real rewards for doing so, besides an alternate color pallette awarded at level 25.

 To be completely honest, Dynasty Warriors 6 is not a bad game, and while I can see why people consider it the black sheep of the series, I also believe that it did a lot of awesome things that were never revisited again, like sieging. Worth mentioning, this is the fastest I've been done with a Warriors game, there's not a whole lot to do. Casual Dynasty Warriors fans and haters will want to stay away, but fans should at least give it a try, the Renbu system is not as bad as people make it out to be. The game is not as bad as people make it out to be.
 6 out of 10.

"First" Archimpressions: Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition

 It ain't that bad.

 SNK never had much luck with their 3D adaptations, specially when it came to fighting games. Their worst victim was, probably, the Samurai Shodown series, however, unlike SS, Fatal Fury seems like a better fit since they've always toyed with foreground and background fighting, and the end result is quite serviceable.
 The closest thing to this game would be the King of Fighters: Maximum Impact series on PS2, it has endless stages, string combos and dodging, like a 3D fighter, but it also keeps the jumping physics, command moves and simpler "mash that button" combos from 2D fighters. All in all, it feels good, which is what matters the most, and the gameplay is not bad. Animations feel a bit weird, but nothing too major.
 Basically: I like it. The CPU is a bit of a bastard, specially Geese, even on easy. I wish myself luck unlocking Mr.Karate, but I reckon I will be able to outcheese Geese.

Month Overview: Game of July

Games completed in July:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword                                            8
Star Fox 64 3D                                            7
Tekken Prime 3D Edition                                            6
Samurai Warriors 3                                            7
Kid Icarus Uprising                                            7.5
Kirby's Epic Yarn                                            5

 Decent month. The really "big" thing was me getting a 3DS, the console itself is pretty nice, but the three games I played are nothing special. Kid Icarus is almost completely amazing... except in the controls department, it makes it drop from a 9(It's THAT good) to a 7.5, I'd have gone lower but I really enjoyed it, whenever I wasn't wrestling with the controls that is. Also: Samurai Warrios 3, that was the biggest time sink of the month, 30 story modes, each one taking at least an hour to complete, and I tried to rush through the latter ones, since most of the cut-scenes and stages were repeats from other story modes...

 Game of the Month:

 I consider the Zelda series to be the most overrated videogame series ever. But for some reason, Skyward Sword trailers really hyped me up, luckily, the end result was almost as good. This could've been my favorite Zelda, but Nintendo overdid the motion controls. For starters, it will take a while before you get comfortable with them, and even then, they tried to shoe-horn it everywhere they could: Swimming, Rope-walking, Free-falling, flying.... it was obscene and unneeded. Despite that, I've never enjoyed a Zelda setting more, the NPCs were all unique(!!) and interesting, the art style was fantastic(Not as overly grim as Twilight Princess, not as Cartoony as Wind Waker, it mixed the best of both worlds!).... So yeah, it's tied up with Twilight Princess as my favorite Zelda. Twilight Princess has the controls, Skyward Sword everything else.

 Runner-up:

 One of the lowest rated games on this month, second only to Kirby's Epic Yarn, it's the most content-starved Tekken I've ever played.... and I can't stop playing it. With a portable Tekken 6, now I can play Tekken in short burts whenever I'm bored. It's much faster than going through console menus and loading times, and while modes are lacking, every single moveset is complete for each character featured in Tekken 6. So yeah, a bad Tekken game is still a great game, fancy how that works, eh!

First Archimpressions: Dynasty Warriors 6

 AKA "What the EFF is goin' on?!"

 So, I pick Lu Xun and go into his Musou Mode, my first reaction? "What the eff is going on?!". This game starts off quite confusing, with loads of units popping up out of nowhere, eventually you get used to it, but the first impression is quite disorienting.
 Graphics are all over the place. The models are not too pretty, but they get the job done, however, some of the special effects are quite laughable. Surprisingly, I've a feeling there are more soldiers on-screen than on DW 7, although it comes with heavy slowdown... but when slowdown is NOT present, it actually moves quite faster than DW 7!. The animations for the attacks are fantastic though, and speaking of animations, I like how cut-scenes are presented in-engine, they look silky smooth!
 Now onto the gameplay.... Renbu doesn't deserve as much hate as it gets. Don't get me wrong, I prefer vanilla DW system, with the different charge attacks, but Renbu is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Sure, it's annoying how it's constantly dropping, but it's not such a huge deal. I'm enjoying the "capture the base" approach quite a lot, wonder why they took it out on 7, hmm....
 On summation: It's decent, Samurai Warriors 3 or DW 7 seem, at the moment, better choices, but who knows, I might end up liking this a bit more.

First Archimpressions: Donkey Kong Country Returns

 'tis good. Really good.

 I'm about to start level 2! It's good. Really, really good. Also, I had more than a bit on trouble on just level 1, which means that it's challenging, specially trying to collect everything. It's fun, really fun.

 Y'know what's not fun? Motion controls for the sake of motion controls. There's not a single control option that allows you to play without them, and they are annoying. Ground pounding with them is fine, uneeded, but fine. Rolling(Attacking) by shaking the remote is not. This late in the Wii's lifespan it should be clear that things that demand precision, like say... ATTACKING, should not be relegated to motion controls.

 Ah well, it's looking quite promising.

Archview #43: Kirby's Epic Yarn

 I'd rather play Wario.

 Kirby's Epic Yarn is yet another Nintendo experiment that had Kirby attached to it, and to be fair, Kirby was probably the best fit for it. In this instance, Nintendo decided to make everything look made out of yarn, while giving it a very children's story-book feel. The end result is a gorgeous game, that may be a little too boring for most people.
 As with most Kirby games, Kirby is hungry and eats more than he should have, finding himself victim to Yin Yarn's anger, who turns him into yarn and sends him into a world made out of yarn. Here he befriends Prince Fluff, and together they venture forth to unite the land and save Dream Land from Yin Yarn. The story is told via some cut scenes, while a narrator, who sounds like he came from a children's show, explains what's going on and reads the lines that characters say. As for the children story-book feeling, they nailed it.

 Unlike other Kirby games, Kirby no longer inhales them, instead he uses thread to either unmake them(They are made out of yarn) or roll'em up into a throwable projectile. Gone too is the flying, instead he can slow his descent by turning into a parachute of sorts. Yeah, transformations are now part of Kirby's default moveset, Dashing makes him turn into a car, ground pounding sees Kirby turned into a weight and swimming turns him into a miniature sub. There are more transformations, but these are achieved by grabbing certain icons, these turn him into anything from a Dolphin, a Firetruck, a Spaceship to a giant tank.
 The biggest change is the fact that you cannot die, instead, Kirby will lose beads(Currency that doubles as stage score) when hit, just like older Wario Land games. You may think that it makes the game easier, and it does, but in order to unlock the secret levels, you must finish the bosses with a certain score. Hidden throughout the levels are 3 collectibles(two stickers and a piece of music), and these may offer a bigger challenge than the game itself. There's also a lot of "Sidequests", Minigames or what have you, that task you with reaching collecting a certain amout of beads, finding characters, bringing to characters to a particular place or beating a certain amount of enemies under a time limit. These can get quite hard, and you need to beat them all if you aim for 100% completition.

 All the beads that you collect are added up to your total bead count after each stage, and these are used to buy "furniture" and "wall papers". Stickers(Found in each level), furniture and wallpapers are used to decorate Kirby's room in Patch Land. There's no real purpose to it, but I'spose younger children may enjoy it.
 Probably the coolest feature of the game: It can be played in Co-op, in which the second player takes control of Prince Fluff. Fluff and Kirby play the same, and the only real difference between them(Besides colors) is the little crown that Fluff sports. Interestingly, Co-op opens up a couple of possibilities, and certain collectibles that you may have missed, and would have to otherwise restart the level to grab, can be reached by using Fluff or Kirby as a plataform and thus reach even higher places. Or treat your partner as a projectile to open up roads that needed you to carry an enemy-turned-projectile in order to break them! Co-op breaks the game, but it makes it much more fun.

 The graphics in the game are something to behold. Everything is made out of yarn and patchwork, with little things like buttons and zippers. It's very cool, specially the first time you pull a thread and affect the enviroment, but to be fair, some of these get old after a while, doesn't help that you have probably seen these moments in the trailers before, so it loses it's charm after a while. The music... I didn't really like it. It's good, but it's too... boring and... relaxing, I'd prefer something with a bit more oomph. The sounds are on the chirpy side, it IS Kirby after all. The Narrator also pulls an awesome performance, completely selling you on the idea that this is a story being told to little children.
 As for me... I didn't really enjoy the game. The art-style is really commendable, and it's always fun when Nintendo pulls off these experiments with styles(Yoshi's Story anyone?), but graphics alone cannot carry a game. I found the gameplay to be very boring, and this comes from someone who enjoyed the Invincible Wario games, the slow-paced music doesn't help at all. It's hard to recommend this game, but I guess there's no harm in trying it, at least.
 5 out of 10.