Review #75: Breath of Fire IV

 Unleash the power of the Dragons.

 Breath of Fire IV was Capcom's last traditional RPG. While there is a Breath of Fire V, it can hardly be labeled as "traditional". Regardless, the game pits in you in the role of yet another Ryu alongside yet another Nina and a couple of other party members, who is a Dragon posing as a human, on his quest to stop a big bad.
 The game takes place in a land styled after China, but where humans and half breeds(From anything to dog-humans to cat-humans) live together. 90% of the time you will play as Ryu, who after meeting up with Nina, aids her in her quest to save her sister. At least at the start, Nina's sister is quickly forgotten about, though the heroes will find her, eventually, but the game makes finding out Ryu's destiny the main leading thread. The other 10% has you playing as the game's antagonist, Fou Lou. Fou Lou's segments are very short and very easy(He is the big bad after all, he should be incredibly overpowered) but they help you sympathize, somewhat, with him.

 The game is  very oldschool, that means that you will be talking with townsfolk until you find that one NPC that advances the story. It's also very vague, so finding the Dragons, which is the game's major sidequest, relies a lot on you going out of your way and backtracking into towns searching for hints over where they may be. And most of the time they are pretty vague about it, so you might want to get a guide. Battles are pretty straight forward, you run around until you get into a random encounter and these are turn based. The battles are pretty average, although be prepared that near the end of the game the difficulty suddenly ramps up, and if you are caught unprepared you will suffer. Honestly, I never lost to a boss or to a random encounter, but  some of the latter boss fights were long and challenging.
 While every character, except Ryu, learns some skills through leveling up, most skills are learned from monsters. In order to learn them, you must guard and hope that the enemy uses the skill that you want to learn. Oh, and you won't always learn it, so you might have to guard many turns. There are also masters spread around the world that alter your stat gains when you level up and teach you new skills when you fulfill certain conditions. Every character can learn any skill, alhough you can't equip more than one character with a certain skill, you can switch them around. As previously stated, Ryu doesn't learn any skills through level up(Even though you can equip him with skills), but he can turn into a Dragon. There's seven different Dragons, most which must be found, and only a couple being out of your way, and each one bestows a different moveset on Ryu. Lastly, by using magic in certain order(Say character 1 uses a fire spell and the next one a wind spell) you can create combos, which make spells deal more damage and, sometimes, even use more powerfuls spells due to the combination.

 While exploring on foot, every now and then you will come upon puzzles. Most are your usual pull the lever or find the keys affairs, but a couple of them require you to use personal skills. Five out of the six playable characters have a Skill, for example one of them can push barrels and another one can headbut stuff. These are not too frequent, but sometimes it's annoying having to go back to a menu to switch your on-foot party just for the puzzle. Speaking of annoying, the camera is very weird. Depending on the area, you may be able to turn the camera in one out of four different angles, sometimes there are only two angles and sometimes none. Most of the time, no angle will be quite right to explore. Also, on-foot movement is a bit imprecise, you might run into angles you didn't mean to. Lastly, the game is full of "minigames" that you must go through in order to continue, and... I didn't really like the approach, why do I have to go through a minigame if I want to use the Sandflier?(Mind you, the first time, this particular one, is actually kinda fun)
 Breath of Fire IV was released late into the Playstation's life cycle, yet it's particularly good looking. While the world is in 3D, characters and enemies are 2D Sprites(With a couple of 3D enemies). The 3D is pretty simple and basic, but the sprites are actually pretty neat. While not too detailed, animation is fantastic, many of the animations are reminiscent of Darkstalkers, full of exaggerated motions and reactions. Music was alright, it fit and there are many different tunes, however, none of them really struck with me. There are also a couple of voiced lines, but they are in japanese.

 There's nothing too bad about Breath of Fire IV, but the thing is.... The Playstation was a console known for its great RPGs, but Breath of Fire IV is just... very, very average. It does little to separate itself from other RPGs, and while playing as the antagonist is a nice touch, it's not a gamesaver. The story does pull a few really good scenes near the end(Concerning Nina's sister), but they can't pull the game away from mediocrity, specially when the verbal clash against the last boss is as cliched as it gets "Yes, Humanity is [insert a flaw] and [insert another flaw] but they are also good!" and then the last boss goes " Then we have to fight to prove who is right". As I said, this game is very average and very cliched.
 5.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Bulletstorm

 Not as good as I expected?

 When it comes to FPS I'm not much of a fan of the modern ones. Taking cover and regenerating health are not my cup of tea, and limiting the weapons you carry due to realism is just dumb, especially when you consider that you have regenerating health. REGENERATING HEALTH. Oldschool ones however, are fantastic, run and gun frenetic fun, strafing your way around enemy fire is just way more fun than hiding behind cover. People Can Fly's Painkiller is one of my favorite FPSs of all time, if not my favorite. And so here we have Bulletstorm, by the creators of Painkiller, where they aim to mix the old with the new.
 So far, I'm not completely sold. Insert generic gruff Space Marine, who happens to look a lot like Marcus Phoenix, gets stranded on a planet and must now fight for survival. Or something. To be honest, the first segment in which you get to see your entire crew killed is kind of interesting, mind you, you barely got to meet these other characters, and what little you know of them is that they are some futuristic fraternity jocks, needless to say, you don't care about them. Still, having you witness their deaths first hand was a nice idea, but it could've used a bit more build up.
 As for the gameplay... Eh. It's nothing special. It's fast, really fast and it feels arcadey, which is actually quite to my liking. You still get regenerating health, which is not that cool, but I've been playing in normal and I haven't had to take much cover, so it's not really a necessity.You are to approach your enemies, as most of them are melee fighters that you get to outrun as you gun down, with a couple of marksmen providing back up. The Leash is an interesting idea, but I don't know just how well will it carry the game, it feels like a simple gimmick. Oh, and why the hell is Multiplayer Mode called multiplayer mode if the ONLY mode to be played is Anarchy? Why not just call it Anarchy? Or simply Multiplayer? Maybe they planned to add more modes via DLC later? And it's co-op only, no deathmatch, kind of a bummer. I played around with three other fellows, but we got stuck on wave 4. We retried it 4 times and failed to get the score needed, that's no fun at all. Who thought that having you replay a wave until you get the score you need, IN MULTIPLAYER, was a good idea? Sigh.
 Bottom Line: I feel like I can get to like it, but so far not too good.

Everything that's wrong with DLC in ONE game.

 Oh boy, here we go again...

 I've made it pretty clear that I'm entirely against DLC. The idea is good, extend the life of the game, add more stuff, you know, like expansion packs? Except that for most developers that translated into: "Take stuff out of the game and sell it at a small price", y'know, as in to spend as little as they can but transform that $60 purchase into a $70 purchase or more. DLC is just a fancy word for "Microtransaction". DLC sucks and will ruin gaming.
 Anyways, this game here has EVERYTHING that is wrong with DLC. Every shady practice, every sign of cutting back on costs but maximizing profits, it has it all. For starters, this is a pseudo-sequel to Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle. While this one is a fighting game and the other a Warriors-type game, they reused about 80-90% percent of the assets from last game. Most of the movesets are returning, some had some slight changes, every camera angle on every Big Bang attack is the same as it was in the last game. A lot of the stages are reused, and while the character models seem new, I dare say that it's just the old ones, but with a cell-shading coat on top. And the 50 character roster this game boasts about? There's about 35 characters that are just clones or slightly Luigified(Smash bros term) clones of other characters. Basically, this game was produced spending as little money as possible.
 First strike) Every single piece of DLC, and there are 34 of them are already on the disc. To be fair, some of them are slightly incomplete(Or the hacker couldn't get them to work properly, although I think another one did) and some of these are sold in packs.
 Second Strike) Some of the DLC is stuff from the last game. Remember how you could take off the armor of every Bronze Saint? Unarmored characters are now paid DLC. Remember how you paid money to play as Odin Seiya? Well, you can get Odin Seiya here too... if you pay. Again.
 Third Strike) Sleazy characters for DLC. Pre-order Bonus? Aries Shion. Even though Shion is already in the game as an specter and so is Mu, as the Aries Saint. Doesn't matter, get a clone of Shion in gold. Remember how odd it was that while Hyoga, Shiryu and Seiya got their Gold armors(Aquarius, Libra and Sagittarius) but Ikki and Shun didn't? And how there's open spaces above Shun and Ikki, resting above Hyoga and Shiryu's? Well, Leo Ikki and Virgo Shun can be yours! If you pay! Oh, and their moveset? Some moves from Phoenix and some from Leo for Ikki while Shun gets a few from Andromeda and a few from Virgo. It shows that they really made an effort to create new characters, eh! It doesn't end there, among the many costume DLC, they are also charging for the Gold Bronze armors, y'know, the ones that they teased with in one of the first trailers? Yeah! That's DLC!
 This game was evidently made on the cheap. They spared as many expenses as they could. And they have the gall to sell large amounts of DLC? And quite a lot of it coming from the previous game? How does Namco-Bandai get away with this bullshit?! Saddest part is, I went to forums, and quite a lot of people were ready to part with their money for these glorified unlock keys. A couple of them were smart enough and refused to cave in, more power to ya, but it's sickening just how dumb people are. DON'T YOU VALUE YOUR MONEY? MAKE THEM EARN IT, GODDAMNIT.

Review #74: Anarchy Reigns

 This game is flippin' awesome.

 Anarchy Reigns is part-reboot part-sequel to Madworld, a Wii game. It's not entirely clear where would it be placed, but many familiar faces return, from Jack, the protagonist, to the Black(er) Baron, Madworld's final boss. They are also joined by plenty of new characters, among them being Leo who serves as co-protagonist alongside Jack. Like Madworld, Anarchy Reigns is, at it's core, a Arena-based Fighting game, although the story mode would have you believe that it's very arcadey brawler, reminiscent of Beat-em ups like Final Fight, only in 3D. The game is very different from Madworld, however.
 The focus has clearly been placed in multiplayer, there's around 8 different modes. This range from classics, like Team DeathMatch or Battle Royale, to capture the flag or the co-op survival mode, there's even a Soccer mode where each time must bring a ball to the other team's goal. Every mode has it's own rules, but most of the time it's reduced to beating your enemies to a pulp with your fists. Most modes also feature usable items, like Sniper Rifles or Shields, and some even place random enemies to add to the already chaotic nature of the game. If that wasn't enough, stages also have "events", usually a deathtrap of sorts gets activated and it's in your best interest to avoid it.

 There's 17 different characters, 18 if you buy the 1-dollar Bayonetta DLC, each one falling in the  Light, Medium or Heavy weight category. Each category has minor differences from each other, but each character has a more-or-less unique movesets. Certain types of moves, like anti-airs or launchers are performed the same with each character, but they behave in different ways, combos are also unique to each character due to the properties of their moves. There's two different attacks, Weak and Strong, but holding the left trigger activates your Lethal Weapon, that also has Weak and Strong attack, these consume energy from a gauge below your health bar, but it's very easy to refill by hitting or getting hit. Lastly, there's a third gauge, Rampage, it's raised in the same manner as your lethal weapon, but it takes more time. Once you activate Rampage mode, you become invincible and get unlimited Lethal Weapon gauge for a little while, and your basic attacks get stronger too.
 In order to unlock most characters, you'll have to go through the story mode. You get to pick between Leo or Jack, but after you are done with either campaign, you get to play as the other one and then go back to your original character for one last mission. In Story mode, you are thrown in a large area, where you must rack up points in order to open up story missions. You earn points by fulfilling Free Missions, which you can redo as many times as you want, or simply kill the endlessly spawning enemies. It's not as tedious as it sounds, finishing one free missions should be enough to open up a Story mission, and hey, Free missions usually provide variety, from a racing minigame to a shooting gallery where you get unlimited ammo. Story Mode also features a lot of cutscenes, and while the story is nothing special, the dialogue is totally off-the wall. The Blacker Baron in particular steals every scene he is in.

 The game has a very unique art-style with some pretty nice character designs. These characters look very heavy, and the animation makes the action look very visceral and brutal, even when there's little to no blood. Every move feels as if it has weight to it, which meshes with the style of the game perfectly. Stages do feel a bit brownish, but they have plenty of different areas to do battle in. The Soundtrack is a phenomenal, it has a lot of Hip Hop and Electronic music, and even though I'm not a fan of Hip Hop I adored the soundtrack, it suits the game very well. Voice acting is alright, most characters have some kind of accent, which sounds really fake, but Jack and Leo are very well done. They also get some of the best lines in the game, when the Baron isn't stealing the show that is.
 As great as the game is, it has one fatal drawback.... No offline multiplayer. This game was made with multiplayer in mind, and the multiplayer is nothing short of fantastic, but it can't be played offline. Not even Cage Matches(1 vs 1). This game has been marketed as a Fighting Game, not having offline multiplayer is unforgivable and crippling, tournaments can't be held, you can't play against your friends if they don't own a console, etc. Even sadder, and also proof of why it was a bad idea, the online is basically dead, save a few regulars that I came across as I tried finding matches. You can play the multiplayer modes with bots though, but it's hidden under the Training Menu, in the Simulation Option.
 I absolutely loved this game, but as good as it is, not having offline multiplayer in a fighting game is just too bad. Single Player is entertaining, and after beating it you can use any character via Stage select, but it's not the same. Having bot matches is a small relief, but hardly makes up for the lack of offline. Still, when it's all said and done, it is a fantastic game.
 9 out of 10.

Review #73: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

 Likely the best in the trilogy.

 And here we have Nathan Drake's latest adventure, and probably the best one yet. Although the story is a bit formulaic, bad guy wants to find ancient city which holds ancient treasure that can probably be used for evil and Nate must race to find it before they do, the new bad guys are the best ones yet. Marlowe is the first female villain in the series, and she's more cunning and threatening than Navarro or Lazarevic. Talbot also works as a better lackey than Flynn or Eddy were. Character banter during gameplay remains as one of the series high points.
 Most of the gameplay remains the same, but some stuff has been changed. Melee has been changed for a third time, Square still works as your basic attack, but enemies are now a bit more resilient and may counterattack more often, making you use Triangle to dodge. The new gimmicks are Circle, which now grabs the enemy and context-sensitive attacks, say you are mashing Square near a bottle, Drake may grab the bottle and smash it on the enemy. The change is a bit odd, as melee was fine in Uncharted 2, but many new scenes now leave Drake unarmed, as to have showcase this new system, there's even a new enemy type, the Brute, who can sustain a lot of bullet wounds but will fall to punches more easily. The circle button also adds some annoyances as you may try to roll or take cover, but if an enemy is close, Nate will prioritize grabbing him.

 For some reason, Naughty Dog saw fit to remove the ability to change the shoulder camera while aiming, it's a bit baffling as it was fairly inoffensive even if you needn't use it all that often. New to his arsenal, by timing Triangle, Nate can hurl back grenades, eventually this feature becomes quite useful in latter levels. For the first time in the series, the game actually has hard puzzles. While most still have you switching to Nate's notebook to check for hints, these puzzles will actually make you think.
 Uncharted 2 had some amazing setpieces, like the Train level or the car chase, Uncharted 3 blows them out of the water. All of them are completely over the top and memorable, not to mention very unique. There's a Ship level that you must first invade, while waves rock it back and forth.... and then it sinks and you have to traverse it horizontally. There's a new car chase with horses involved. And there are plenty, plenty more. It's true, sometimes they feel a bit out of place, but the pay off is so satisfying that you won't mind the excuses the game pulls in order to get Nate to those places.

 Multiplayer returns, and it's just as good as Uncharted 2's. The shop system, for multiplayer also returns, and new to the series is offline co-op. Offline co-op is relegated to a couple of mini-missions though. Sadly, a lot of the Single player extras are gone, no more funny filters, Mirror World, Zero Gravity or skins. Regardless, besides the Single Player skins, who really cared about the other extras?

 Uncharted 2 looks amazing, and somehow, somehow, Naughty Dog managed to make this game look even better. Characters look even more detailed than before, there are more little details, like the way Nate reacts when colliding with objects added just to show off. Even getting wet looks better. This game is pure eye candy, no other game looks this good. The music remains just as good, and voice acting is still top-notch. Uncharted 3's presentation is not easily matched, as every field in the audiovisual department is outstanding.

 Uncharted 3 is a fantastic game to end the series. While I wasn't a fan of the new melee system, everything else is spot on. And even though the game is an audiovisual masterpiece, a game is not good if the gameplay is not good, luckily, this game is fun to play, and it's unique and incredible setpieces are easily worth at least one playthrough. For PS3 owners, this is a must-have.
 9 out of 10.

Now Playing: Anarchy Reigns

 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

 I just started this game, and it's amazing. It's so much fun, and visceral. I love how every move has weight behind it, makes the resulting blow so much more satisfying. The only negative is the multiplayer. There's no offline, and this is a fighting game. A fighting game with no offline multiplayer. What where they thinking? And the online community is dead. DEAD. Sad part is, I played against bots, and multiplayer is so much fun, goddammit Sega. What's the point of buying the Bayonetta DLC, which I heavily considered since I'm liking the game so much, if I can only use her against bots? Dammit, Sega.

Now Playing: Breath of Fire IV

 So far so good.

 It's a funny story(Not really) I have with this game. Back when I was a Nintendo 64 kid, I used to see BoF IV ads on magazines, and I was enthralled by the art. I really wanted to play it. Fast forward 10 or so years, and I find out it was out on PC. I download it, and while I play I learn that the PC version wouldn't work after certain scenes, and it happened to a lot of people. I prayed that I wouldn't be one of them. I was.
 And now, here I am, with the PS1 version, and... so far so good. I'm playing on the PS3, in an HD TV, which means the graphics looks hideous, but I already got used to them. And even if it doesn't look pretty, the animation is still top-notch, Capcom really knew how to make and animate sprites back then. Oh, Capcom, now you just remind me of someone that I used to know.