Now Playing: Soul of Darkness

 For a rip-off, it's halfway decent.

 This game doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's a bare-faced rip-off Castlevania. From the style of the sprites themselves to the environments. However, beauty is only skin-deep, as the animation is pretty choppy, from what I could gather, it's a Mobile game port. Gameplay, however, is actually pretty freakin' decent, I had quite a bit of fun, all twenty minutes I invested. The game is also pretty easy, infinite lives plus the game saves every time you enter a room, so you can restart at the start of the room, but it's also a must, as once the game failed to trigger an event, so I had to restart that section. Exploiting the levels for orbs, to enhance your weapons, is pretty easy as well.
 Well, for such a shameless copy, it's pretty alright, no where near as good as a Castlevania game, but a nice diversion.

Now Playing: Gundam Extreme VS - Full Boost

 THIS GAME IS SO GOOD.

  Finally, I've been waiting for so long, and... so far so good. Impulse Gundam was the one I was looking forwards the most, and he is so fun. Surprisingly, the Gian, a Mobile Suit I don't particularly like, is so much fun to use. Arcade Mode seems to be harder, I raged so hard, yet loved it so much. I love this game. Melee, as a whole, seems to have received a small boost, as the window for the melee combos seems much more generous. I spent over 3 hours on this beauty, and of the new suits, I tried: Impulse, Gian(I didn't buy the DLC, so it's a new unit for me) and the Zeong, the Zeong... I didn't like too much, he seems a bit technical and long-ranged, both attributes that I dislike.
 Speaking of dislike, I have a couple of issues with the game as a whole. First, let's start with the thing I hate the most about last gen: DLC. There were a bunch of DLC units leaked pretty soon after the release, and while they are 100 yen cheaper than Vanilla's DLC, they are all clones. Yes, clones, they took existing units, swapped the pilot, altered it's stats(Usually weaker versions) and called it a new unit. There is one or two completely new models, but they are the exception. Vanilla EVS had more expensive DLC, but you could tell work went into it, they were completely new units and they brought a new season of DLC units a year after the game was released, work went into this DLC, even if the second batch of DLC were units from the then Arcade-Only Full Boost. Also, Single Player, Vanilla Extreme VS had over 100 different missions, this game has about half of them, and people are saying many are copy paste from those. True, this game thrives on Multi-Player, but the other game tried! One thing that didn't sit well with me, is how you don't earn medals anymore on the Arcade Route, getting a Gold always felt so good.
 Regardless, I am loving this game, and two out of the three new Unit I tried were extremely fun to play with. Definitely loving it.

Archile's Grab-bag : Early, lazy Saturday!

 DEMASHITAA~A

  I've been waiting for this package, waiting endlessly... AND IT'S HERE.

 SNIKT.

 GUNDAM EXTREME VS FULL BOOST IS HERE! YES. Context: Gundam Extreme VS is one of my favorite PS3 games, second only to Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Lollipop Chainsaw and Journey(Yeah, maybe not "second", but pretty high up there). AND NOW IT GETS EVEN MORE UNITS, 95 OUT OF THE BOX PLUS 3 FREE DLC UNITS. Still... Well, I'll save opinions for the First Impressions, heh.

Review #95: Naruto Powerful Shippuden

 Ain't nothing powerful about this one.

 Naruto is a popular franchise, so popular that it spawned it's own spin off, Rock Lee and his friends. So popular in fact, that the spin off spawned a video game of it's own, developed by Inti Creates, the people that developed Megaman Zero and ZX, sadly, the result is not as stellar.
 The game lets you play as either Naruto or Rock Lee, you'll have to play as both in order to progress however, and it more or less follows the story up to the Pain arc, with a couple of extra stages featuring latter events. Regardless, it's a very loose retelling, in a more "humorous" fashion, however, it falls flat on it's face most of the time. Gags are very formulaic, usually one of the boys will act in a ridiculous manner and one of the girls will explain why it's supposed to be funny, but it's not and rarely ever is. This is supposed to take after the Japanese humor routine of the "Funny guy" and "Serious guy", the girls always taking the Serious guy's place and the boys the Funny guy's, but the game is rarely ever funny. There's a lot of crossdressing humor and the kind of jokes they'd pull on filler episodes to retain their younger audience. Still, there are a couple of jokes that might make you smile, but they don't make up for the rest of the game.

 This is a more or less straight forward action game, you have your standard life bar and energy bar(Chakra), and you get your typical attack, jump and block buttons. If you press block right before getting hit, you'll actually dodge the attack, at the cost of some Chakra, and there are a couple of unblockable moves that must be dodged this way. The X Button serves as the special attack that consumes a little chakra, pressing it on it's lonesome executes an special attack, but stringing it during weak attack combos produces different effects, like a pop up or a knock down attack. You also get Super Moves, like the Rasengan that are pulled of by pressing Block and Special at the same time, and these cost a little more Chakra, both Lee and Naruto also have access to special forms that boost their stats. Finally, you can bring up to three support characters, when allowed to, with you that have their own unique attacks and effects.
 First, let's go over the good things about the gameplay, experience points. Beating each stage grants you Experience Points, and before each stage you can actually take "Personal Challenges", there's about six per stage, but you can only attempt one per go, that multiply the experience points gained, and there is no penalty for failing them. Now, these experience points can be spent on a pretty nice variety of parameters, be it your level(raises HP and attack power), resistance to status effects(Poison, paralyzed, etc), skills or even one-time use bonuses. Even better, you can reallocate points however you see fit, except the ones you spent on one-time use, those are gone for good.

 As for the bad... the game is incredibly repetitive. They tried to alleviate it with different kinds of stages, there's the straightforwards go right and beat anything on your path stages, as well as "defeat every enemy" survivals, stages in which you must find a certain number of a certain item or find a certain number of certain enemy and defeat it, but they all feel very, very repetitive. Even though Rock Lee and Naruto have different storylines, the stages feel very samey between both characters. What adds to the repetition is the combat itself. You see, human enemies like to dodge or block a lot of your attacks, so you have to wear down their Chakra, by forcing them to Dodge until they run out of Chakra, this doesn't make the gameplay any tougher or deeper, it just makes really slow and boring, it isn't even all that hard, just tedious. The game is at it's best during boss fights, as the draining the enemy's Chakra does make sense then, and it's much more fun against this one, tougher opponent. And you'd better enjoy them, as there is a total of 6 stages for each Boss: The original stage, a Harder version, Easy and Hard Boss Challenge versions for Naruto and Easy and Hard Boss Challenge versions for Rock Lee. Did I mention that missions feel very samey? They do.
 The game's best feature, by far, are the graphics. Animation is pretty smooth and charming, and the characters look impossibly cute. The style they used for the sprites makes them look as if they were ripped straight from a TV show, this game is pure eye-candy, plus, turning the 3D on doesn't affect the framerate in the slightest. Sound is alright, music is the usual filler music they use for this kind of licensed games, and each character has a couple of voiced lines, and that's about it.

 The game lasts a solid 6 hours for the core content, then you unlock Endless Battle(Read: Infinite Boss Rush) and the Boss Challenge stages for both Rock Lee and Naruto, clearing these unlock a couple of newer stages. There is plenty of content in the game, it's a shame it's such a drag to unlock it, and not worth it, as the game is not much fun. As with most games that look pretty, the gameplay is pretty lame, unless you are a hardcore Naruto fan, just skip this one altogether.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #94: Kirby Super Star Ultra

 A whole lot of Kirby in one!

  Kirby Super Star was a very popular SNES Kirby game that held many "sub-games" instead of one big Kirby adventure. And now(Actually, a couple of years ago), Nintendo decided to port it to the DS, adding Ultra to the title, and a couple of new extras.
 In the original game there was no real story to the game, besides a short, simple description of each activity, but now we get 3D cutscenes that kinda tie everything together, very loosely mind you. They are heavily compressed, but they look kinda neat, still, they add nothing to the overall experience.

 There are a total of 15 different "Sub-Games", 5 of them are minigames(Three which use the new Touch Screen capabilities). The other ten behave more like Kirby games but with specific conditions or goals. You get The Arena, in which you fight all the bosses, The Great Cave Offensive that focuses on the exploration aspect that Kirby games usually include, but instead of opening up new levels, you find hidden items, Dyna Blade which behaves like a normal Kirby game, without the exploration or The Revenge of Meta Knight that has many timed stages. Basically, they are all Kirby games that focus on different elements of your usual Kirby games, so to speak. It's an interesting take to say the least, and while none of the activities lasts too long, you can pick what you want, want to play as Meta Knight? You can do it. Wanna have fun exploring? Pick The Great Cave Offensive, want something more frantic? Revenge of Meta Knight it is.
 Gameplay is just as every other Kirby game, you eat enemies and gain their powers, if they have one. Each power has a nice variety of skills, so that's pretty nice, and exclusive to Super Star Ultra, you can create an AI-Helper(Or player, if you are playing in Multiplayer) from the power you currently have. The game is, overall, pretty easy, but there's plenty of replay value, Kirby is just fun to play, plus there's plenty of optional goals in some of the games. Plus, the unlockable True Arena isn't easy at all.

 The game received a graphical overhaul, most sprites were replaced by their GBA counterparts(Not a bad thing, they were really pretty) and some new ones were created. The end result is a much more visually pleasing game than the SNES version, colors are brighter and Kirby is rounder. On the sound front, you'll come across plenty of familiar tunes and a couple of new ones, and while I'd hardly call them classics, they can get quite catchy.
 Kirby Super Star Ultra is a fine little game to have on the go, but truth be told, I'd take a normal Kirby game over this one any day of the week.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #93: Grandia II

 Who let this port through quality testing?

  The Dreamcast had a somewhat small library, but full of quirky and unique games, and more than a couple of cult classics. Grandia II was born on the Dreamcast, and was later ported to the PS2, 2 years later. Spoiler alert: The port is atrocious, it wasn't a launch game and there was no reason to rush the port, so why did they mess it up so badly?
 In the JRPG you take control of Ryudo, a Geohound, a mercenary basically, who by some twist of fate wounds up involved in the resurrection of Valmar, god of Darkness. The story is nothing new, but what it does, it does pretty well. The game touches some interesting subjects, like not all Evil being bad or all good being, well, good, but it doesn't delve to deep into it, sadly. While the dialogue isn't bad by any means, heck it can be pretty colorful at times, some of it, particularly during the romantic scenes, can get pretty corny, I found myself laughing during them more often than not.

 As with every other JRPG of it's ilk, you are to go from town to dungeon to town, ad nauseam. There is no overworld, instead you pick a location from a map and travel to it. Even by JRPG standards, Grandia 2 is a pretty linear game, there are tons of points of no return, luckily, there are no valuable missables... which also means that there are no real valuables to be found. Some of the field areas can be pretty expansive, and some hold weapons or equipment pieces, but they'll get outclassed pretty quickly, which means that exploration isn't properly rewarded. Why explore if the next town will sell better equipment? Even more disappointing, there are no sidequests or secret bosses. There is an optional area later in the game that holds the worst equipment in the game(seriously), so why even bother?
 Combat is engaged by touching an enemy. The combat is, at it's core, turn-based, but it does offer a couple of nuances that make it much more interesting. On the lower right corner of the screen there is the action bar, when the icon of a character, or enemy, comes into contact with the red area of the bar, his or her turn begins and you can select a course of action. After selecting what to do, the character icon will travel to the edge of the bar and then execute the command, defending is instantaneous, attacking takes a very short while and magic or items take a lot of time. Now then, there are special attacks that you can use, so that if you hit an enemy while he is on the red area of the bar, you'll cancel their action(They can also do this to you!). It's a fairly interesting mechanics that adds strategy to the game, however, special attacks and magic are really strong, so the game doesn't really pose much of a challenge, outside of a boss or too. And as fun as it is, sometimes the CPU can be really dumb, and make to of your characters walk against each other, this can make you effectively waste a turn, as the character gets "tired" and won't reach the enemy. There are instances where they'll defeat an enemy and then hit the air for who knows what reason. It's understandable when you have two characters hitting the same enemy and one kills it while the other is attacking, but sometimes they'll perform the combo attack on the air. Not cool. And you have no control over either of these.

 When you win battles, you earn experience and three types of currencies: Magic Points, Skill Points and money. Money is used to buy items at shops, obviously, but the other points are used to tailor them to your liking. There are two special equippable items, Mana Eggs and Skills. Mana Eggs are items that grant your characters spells, there are about 8 different mana eggs, with different spell combinations, that you must level up with your Magic Points. Skills come from Skill Books, each Skill Book holds plenty of different skills that you level up with Skill Points or Mana Points, and these provide passive buffs to the wearer. Skill points are also (better)spent on the Special Moves of each character. Rule of the thumb is to max your Cancel-inducing single-target special and multi-enemy hitters. Cancel inducers to limit the damage bosses can deal and multi-enemy hitters to farm easily, as most of these can 1 hit KO them. It may sound like a hassle, but it's actually fairly engaging, and it's neat to be able to customize your party!
 As for the presentation, here is where it all comes apart. The graphics are awfully dated, even for Dreamcast standards. Environments lack detail, and character models are fairly simply and low-poly, they don't even have mouths. For what it's worth, the art-direction is really good, so you don't really mind it... until the frame rate drops. Frame Rate is awful, all the time. How this game got past quality assurance is beyond me. Walking around towns or most of the dungeons is done while under 30 FPS and can get pretty annoying. Battles too present framerate issues, and some of the worst moments are when you enter new towns and the camera pans around. So. Frigging. Slowly. These scenes last way more than they should thanks to this, and it quickly becomes vexing. This too applies to every single in-engine cutscene. Speaking of cutscenes, they present plenty of clipping issues, sometimes characters will even be missing parts of their faces during them. How did they let this through? At least the music is pretty good, and the voice acting is surprisingly decent.

 Good news: Despite all it's technical issues, it's not unplayable. The bad news? You won't have much fun. Technical issues aside, the game is fairly good, it's not fantastic, but it's an alright JRPG.
 5.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Wild Arms 2

 "V for victory, suckah!" Lilka's the man... erm, woman.

 I finished Grandia II, cue in a congratulational orchestra, which means it's time for another JRPG, cue in Wild Arms 2. I just finished both Lilka and Brad's introductions, Wild Arms series(At least the ones I've played) have you play as each of the main characters, individually, before they join up, and left Ashley's for last. I'm happily content, the game is as fun as I remembered it too, and I just love how chunky the characters look in the 3D engine.
 Still, I remember being annoyed to no end by the Search function. Y'see, Wild Arms 2 wasn't gonna be like other JRPGs, oh no, they had to innovate, how? On the Overworld there is nothing, you have to press Square to have a circle cover the area around you, if you hit a town, dungeon or hidden item, it's permanently added to the map and the overworld... but you have to find it first, and I remember it getting quite annoying. Ah well, I was younger back then, and Wild Arms 3 kept this mechanic, and I don't remember having much trouble with it(Heck, Wild Arms 3 is one of my favorite JRPGs ever) so who knows?
 Oh, and Lilka is just the best "V for Victory, Suckah!".