Review #101: Shinobi

 Oldschool goodness.

 Shinobi is a series that's sadly underrated, to think that it once was one of Sega's flagship titles! Curiously enough, three games, counting this one, share the "Shinobi" name, but I digress. Developed by Griptonite Games, Shinobi on the 3DS is a callback to the games of old, tough as nails and as unforgiving as it gets.

 The story.... makes no sense, but it all boils down to time travel, seriously. You play as Jiro Musashi, father of the legendary Joe Musashi(The hero from the first games), who during a invasion on his village gets sent into the future, for mysterious reasons, and must now battle Zeed in the future. The story never, ever makes much sense, and you do get cut-scenes before, and sometimes during, each level, but don't expect them to make much sense, at least you get to battle a mechanical shark!

 This is a platformer styled after the games of old, which is to say, memorization is a big part of the game. Plenty of times you'll be hit by stuff you weren't expecting, or maybe you won't be able to react fast enough to an obstacle after you've seen it, and that's alright, by your next run you'll be, hopefully, be able to deal with them. The game starts out hard and only gets more challenging as it goes on, having some very hard platforming segments on the last level. You'll have to jump, double jump, wall jump or hook to the roof in order to get through the game, but you'll also come across various enemies. Enemies are, on paper, the least of your worries, as they run on patterns, but the game loves mixing different kinds of enemies together so that you have to plan on how to get through them, sometimes with a little platforming on the mix. Combat is a no thrills affair, enemies go down after a couple of swings from your blade or Kunais, but you can actually juggle their corpses in order to raise the combo meter, which in turn gives you more damage and more points per hit, get hit once however, and your combo meter drops down to 1.

 Jiro has a couple of other tricks in his bag in order to make his journey easier, though not by a whole lot, in the form of four different spells and a parry. Y'see, blocking is too mainstream and a coward's move, instead Jiro can only parry, and you have to time it right unless you want to look like a fool and receive damage, although you can parry at, basically, any moment, and if you got your parry right, Jiro will automatically parry anything that tries to harm it soon after, meaning that enemy combos get parried automatically if you parry the first hit. As for spells, all of them are a one-time affair, unless you find a scroll lying about or respawn after death, and they provide many different bonuses, but lightning will be, by far, the most useful, making you invulnerable for three hits.

 As hard as the game is, you do get four different difficulty settings: Beginner, which grants you infinite lives and plenty of checkpoints, so you will, eventually, get through the game. Normal gives you five lives, but infinite continues, losing all your lives means starting the level from the very start. Ouch. Was Normal too easy for you? Hard limits your lives and continues to three each and you only get checkpoints on level transitions. Finally there's very hard, which I didn't even try. Each of the nine levels lasts about 20 minutes most, but getting through the game on Normal, blindly, took me six hours plus, and doing it on hard, knowing what to do, took me about three. Regardless, you also get unlockable Challenge Maps(One hit kills you!) by finding every Bonus Token on each level and by spending spotpass points on them. It doesn't end there, there are loads of achievements to unlock, and each one grants you a little something, from to Cheats to use in Free Mode(Which, sadly, don't let you earn achievements), costumes, Weapon skins, hats or a character that plays completely different from Jiro. The game might be short, but it's very high on replay value.

 Platformers this hard need spot-on controls, and the game more or less provides. Controls are pretty tight, most of the time, but wall-jumps and double jumps could've used some tightening. Plenty of times you'll need to double jump out of a wall-jump, if you double jumped before the wall jump then you'll only be able to perform a single jump, the issue here is that unless you press the direction opposite of the wall, and jump, Jiro will double jump instead of wall-jumping, how is this annoying? If you double jumped before the wall jump, pressing jump will automatically perform the wall-jump, which can get confusing later on. Furthermore, movement is done with the analog stick, instead of the digital pad, which on a game played on a 2D plane isn't the best choice, when you need to fall down beneath the platform you are standing on, it can sometimes prove troublesome, due to the analog's stick nature. One thing to keep in mind, is that the hit boxes are a bit bigger than what you might expect. Hit detection is alright, but some projectiles have rather big hitboxes, so you'd better get used to them.

 The game's worst aspect is, easily, its presentation. The game is fully 3D, but on a 2D plane, graphics are very lackluster and just plain looking. Still, the game manages to impress thanks to its setpieces. Y'see, the game never lets up, on the very first stage you'll go through a horseback section, then there's a section that takes place above a warplane, as enemies in jetpacks board your plane, how about the segment when you are on-board a truck and must go from truck to truck since missiles are targeting you, which sounds rather tame when compared to a mechanical shark trying to take a bite out of you while you are freefalling on a cascade.... only to be later fighting a chopper as another mechanical shark tries to destroy the solid magma you are running on.... the game is impossibly exciting and imaginative, specially for a 3DS game, easily making up for how lame it looks on a technical level. Cut-scenes between levels are made in a hand-drawn style that looks very cool, even if the animation itself is very lame. As for the music... it's very "ninja-like", very fitting, but not terribly exciting or memorable

 Shinobi on the 3DS is a bit hard to recommend, not because it's bad, on the contrary it's really good, but because its target audience is rather small. If you are looking for oldschool games, this is what you want, but if you can't stand old platformers that require memorization, skip this one.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Dissidia 012 - Final Fantasy

 Finally a good game!

 My first PSP game was Darkstalkers 3, and it was a fantastic game, but a game I had played before plenty of times. It's the best version of said game, but I repeat, I had played it before. Little Big Planet was fair, but it didn't click with me, and Mimana was downright terrible. Dissidia is pretty dang good for a change.

 I've wanted to play Dissidia ever since I heard of the first installment, Cloud? Final Fantasy fighting game? Characters flying around? I SO WANT. I waited and hoped for Squeenix to make a PS2 or PS3 HD port, something so that I could play it. Well, since it won't come to me, I will go to it, via PSP.

 I like it, I like it a lot. The one thing that doesn't click with me is how you have to equip characters with moves, and while I'm sure most players enjoy the customization, I am a Fighting game fan, screw customizable movesets, I want balanced, determined movesets for the whole cast without having to grind for it, there's 20 plus characters, surely they don't expect me to grind everyone's levels just so that I can enjoy 1 on 1 fighting, do they? They do, but that's besides the point, it seems the unlockable Lv 50 and Lv 100 presets are just what I want.

 Gameplay was a bit hard to grasp at first, I could get the gist of Circle attacks take away Bravery, Square attacks take away health, but the whole dodging/chasing mechanics, plus platforming and EX-Cores? It was a lot to take in at first, and the tutorial could've been a little more in-depth, but I think I got the hang of it. I approve of this game.

Review #100: Mimana: Iyar Chronicle

 Awful. Terrible. Happy 100th review, eh?

 I've been playing RPGs ever since I first came across Quest 64, and I've been enamored with the genre ever since. I've seen JRPGs evolve into fantastic games like Wild Arms 3 or the modern Shin Megami Games, and I've also seen them devolve into a nische genre, character development is not as important as it once was, no, now we get the equivalent to junk food of JRPGs, stuff like Ar Tonelico or HyperNeptunia that appeal to a very particular audience that like their games raunchy and with fan-service as its focus. Or we get games that just try to hard to innovate where there was no need to, like Final Fantasy XIII and it's sequels. My point is, I love RPGs, both Western and Japanese  My point is, RPGs are my jam, my thang, and I was actually looking forwards to Mimana, and while on the surface it looks like just another Ar Tonelico, it actually avoids most of its worst qualities, yet falls flat on is face when it comes to everything else.
 Meet Crais, the character that you'll be playing as, a mercenary that has a problem when it comes to gambling, and hates kids, don't worry, he loves reminding everyone about his hatred every chance he gets. He soon gets hired by Sophie, a little girl, and must aid her in finding seven orbs scattered through the country(Yeah, no world-wide adventure for ya). Alongside the way he'll come across four other dames, each with a defining character trait that will aid them on their journey. Yes, it's one of those games in which you can somewhat romance one of the girls, and whichever your romanced, gets a bonus extra scene at the end. Surprisingly, while character development is almost null or incredibly forced, the five female leads are actuall well designed, with almost no fanservice in their design, props to the character designer. However, there is a slight problem with the plot, this game was meant to kickstart a series(which it didn't), and they never came to be, so the game hints at many things that will never be explained, and leaves a couple of threads hanging. Not cool.

 As previously stated, the scale of the adventure is very small, after you gather each gem you'll have to return to the game's only town, well, there's another one but there's nothing to do in it, trigger the next scene in which they'll tell you where to go and so on. That's, basically, it. Combat in the game comes in the forms of random encounters as you travel through the dungeons, get used to them as the encounter rate is pretty high, which brings us to the first annoyance: Load times. Load times are long, pretty long, and the encounter rate is through the roof, unless you resort to walking around, so if you wanna get anywhere fast, your best course of action is, probably, walking. Even better, there are loading times after each battle, so running away solves nothing. Annoyingly so, you'll have to go through Tanis Woods in order to reach any other dungeon, later in the game you'll be assaulted by unavoidable(Unless you walk) low level encounters that don't even give any experience points turning it into a very annoying time sink, it's so incredibly annoying. It doesn't end there, every dungeon is like a labyrinth made up of similar looking rooms with no landmarks, except the blue healing circle at the start of the dungeon and the pink one before the boss. It's impossible not to get lost in the latter dungeons, and there is no map available, it's even worse when switches are introduced into these mazes, now couple this with the high encounter rate and you are in for a very, very annoying experience.
 Combat fares better, if only because you can't get any worse than the lame dungeon design. It takes a page from the "Tales" franchise in that it takes place in real time, you take control of Crais(And only Crais) and the CPU takes control of three of the ladies. Now then, you can set, only outside of battle, how these character will behave by adding or substracting points into "Attack", "Magic" and "Recovery", which translates into how often they will do each action... yeah, it's awkward and too vague. It gets worse, the AI is incredibly stupid, often times staying put in place as enemies get close to her and attack her, and only then will they move away... a few inches. If you want to make the most of your spell casters, manually tell them to cast each spell, as they love to just stare at nothingness. As cool as the combat sounds on paper, casting magic as Crais is pretty dang useless, as you stay in place and hope not to get hit so that the spell goes off. Your casters get it easier since you can protect them from harm, but guess what, since you get free movement, evading non-targeted spells is as easy as moving two inches up, and the enemy's spell will miss completely(The AI is not that smart, sadly, but it applies to enemies too, who will happily stand in the way of a spell). Crais does get a couple of special attacks in the form of spells, but why waste mana on them if your basic three-hit combo is so good and useful? Mashing that X button quickly became a chore, but it got me through the game just fine. Even through that last boss that can 1 hit KO you even if you are at max level.

 As far as minor complaints go, I've a couple more. For instance, every time your party gets disassembled and reassembled, you lose your party configuration and battle positions, very annoying. Then there's the fact that enemy design is incredibly lame, you get roosters of various colors, beetles, then there's sheep and jelly, that come in the form of cones or cubes. The game does include a couple of sidequests... but they are very well hidden, easy to miss as you only get one and one opportunity to trigger them at specific times and the rewards are not worth it. There's a new game plus that let's you carry over your levels and ups the maximum from 50 to 99. Supposedly there's a hidden boss if you grind up to level 99, but that would take weeks, as enemies give you less and less experience as you level up.
 Presentation is the game's strongest quality, but that's not saying much. Sprites look pretty nice, while not in motion, but the animation is a mixed bag. Some animations look pretty nice, but other could've, nay, should've used more frames. Backgrounds look very low quality as well. On the flip side, voice acting is fantastic, with a plethora of well known Voice Actors... but then again, the music is pretty forgettable and short on quantity. Dungeons have no music at all. Those long, maze-like, random-encounter infested time sinks have no music. NO MUSIC. This game is terrible.
 I've... I've nothing else to say. This game is awful, it has a bunch of neat ideas when it came to combat, but it's so poorly implemented. While it looks like just another harem game, the female leads are actually pretty well designed, it's a shame that they star in such a bad game. There's almost no redeeming qualities, good ideas executed poorly don't really save a game.
3.0 out of 10

Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost Impressions part 7

Gunner Zaku

 Has a new attack with stunning properties, still, it's the same unit as before with little changes. It's very strong at long range and mid range, and can hold it's own at close range, not bad, but a bit slow.

NEW Gaia Gundam

 I wasn't really looking forwards to this one, luckily, as I don't like it at all. It's gimmick is it's mobile armor mode in which it changes into a dog-like form, like the LaGOWE. Unlike the LaGOWE, this one is pretty dang hard to maneuver around. There's also a couple of moves that turn you into MA mode, but not the other way around. Yeah, I'm not using this one any time soon.

Destiny Gundam

 It received minor tweaks, most noticeable a small buff to its health. Strong all around Mobile Suit, very solid pick and easy to use.

Infinite Justice Gundam

 Poor IJ Gundam received a ton of nerfs, but on the bright side, it's still a very strong unit, even with nerfs to its mobility, it's still really, really fast. It also got a new assist attack, not that it really needs it. Works best at mid-to-close range, it's got some stylish melee attacks.

NEW Impulse Gundam

 Ever since it was revealed it was gonna be on Full Boost, I been looking forwards to this one the most. Why? Impulse Gundam(Sword pack) is a Mobile Suit I adore, and it was announced that it was gonna play just like Strike Gundam, the unit I loved the most in vanilla. My opinion? I love it. It's a stronger Strike Gundam, everything Strike it does, it can do better. There is one slight downgrade, lack of IWSP pack, but since it's a 2500 unit, as opposed to Strike's 2000 cost, it has the benefit of a longer health bar and other enhanced stats. I adore this one.

BONUS

Gundam Seed Stargazer

NEW Stargazer Gundam

 This one's a very unique mobile suit, it possesses a remote-controlled bomb and some very unique melee properties. For instance, it only has two melee combos, but makes up for it by having a very strong and long ranged, but very slow, melee attack that hits everything on a radius around the Stargazer. This also means that you have to be wary of your ally's position. StarGazer also possess a timed mode that changes it's long ranged melee attack into a comboable long range move that doesn't hit around it, your ally should be glad! I'm not a fan, but I'm intrigued, I may play it more later in order to decide how I feel about it.

Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost Impressions Turn A, Seed-chapter.

Turn A Gundam

 Better mobility and a bunch of new attacks make Turn A feel quite fresh... but it's still a hard unit to use effectively. He is really strong up close, devastatingly so, but not very user friendly.

Gold Sumo

 He received minor buffs, including enhanced mobility. Good close range unit, with a comboable beam shot.

NEW Kapool

 Two entirely different units in one, each one with a separate health bar, there's no other unit quite like Kapool. Sochie's Kapool, the green one, specializes in long range, but it's a bit slow and has less health than Corin's. Corin's Red Kapool is awful at long range, but has more endurance, more speed and packs quite a punch on his melee hits. Oh, and while one of the Kapools is benched, it slowly recovers its health!. Fun mobile suit.

Gundam Seed

LaGOWE

 Changes are negligible, it's basically the same unit that it was before. There's not a whole lot of power behind it, but it's probably the fastest unit in the game and is definitely one of the most annoying units to fight against, which makes it quite fun.

NEW Duel Gundam (Assault Shroud)

 I was expecting a lot more out of the Duel Gundam. It's not bad by any means, what's more, it has tools to work effectively at any range, but it's just so... so plain and lame, nothing stands out about it.

Providence Gundam

 It got buffs everywhere, basically he shoots faster, has more ammo and more hp, even its mobility got buffed, but it's still a very slow unit. I don't know, I don't like it too much, probably the funnel user I like the least.

Forbidden Gundam

 More or less the same unit it used to be. Forbidden Gundam was a unit I was never too fond of and still am not, it probably has the worst close-range game in the entire roster. It can curve his gerobi beams, which is kinda neat though.

Strike Gundam

 The Strike Gundam was my favorite Mobile Suit in vanilla, I just loved how you could change its equipment for various different movesets. It was a great unit and now? It's even better, he got buffed everywhere on every form(Except the basic one, but who cares). Oh, and now the ammo of each form reloads constantly, no matter what form you are using. The only drawback, I'd say, is that each form is good for one thing and one thing only, except the timed IWSP form that is good at everything, but then again, it's a timed form.

NEW Freedom Gundam

 Very solid unit that works well at any range. It also happens to have a beam attack for any situation! Fairly easy to use, fantastic base stats since it's a 2500 unit, and also happens to work well at any distance, can't go wrong with it.

BONUS

Strike Freedom Gundam

 The Freedom Gundam plus Funnels. Actually, not quite, its got an entirely different melee moveset(much better), different beams(It only shares the basic beam rifle and the "unload everything" subweapon) and funnels, which makes it feel quite different. Most of its changes have to do with cancel routes for its moves, so I won't delve to deep into them, but it received a quite interesting change, when you set the funnels behind you, instead of sending them after the enemy, they won't unload when you shoot, instead, you must press BC again to have them shoot.

Review #99: Little Big Planet (PSP)

 Could've been worse. A lot worse

 Little Big Planet is Sony's staple platformer series ever since Crash jumped ship and became multi-platform. I don't own any Little Big Planet game, yet, but I got this one after PSN got hacked, and since I have a PSP now, why not give it a whirl?
 For starters, I like platforming games, I'm not necessarily good at them, but I enjoy them, Little Big Planet is a big odd, for instance, it takes place upon different planes(3 planes on consoles, but, luckily, reduced to 2 in the PSP game), and has some very, very floaty physics. The game is incredibly floaty, fans of tight, pixel perfect jumps that test your reflexes might want to look elsewhere. LBP makes up for this by focusing more on puzzles, you may need to carry objects from place to place, or travel from vine to vine while avoiding incoming hazards. Honestly? I don't like the mechanics, I dislike having multiple planes, and I dislike that your jumps may be hindered by small bumps on where you are standing. Everything feels loose, and I don't like it. Even worse, the game has a fair amount of glitches, I found myself stuck at least three times, which made me kill myself in order to progress(You can kill yourself at will, in case you want to try a jump again or what have you), and the level creator crashed on me, and from what I read on forums, it's quite a common occurrence.

 LBP is a very forgiving game, there are numerous checkpoints throughout each level, and once activated, death will make you respawn at the last that's been activated. Death comes at a cheap price, points, points are but bragging rights, having no impact on unlockables. And unlockables there are plenty, they come in the form of pieces for the level creator, levels, stickers or customization items, and they are hidden throughout each level, there's a lot to find and collect. While most of the game is pretty easy, some of these hidden levels can pose a decent challenge.
 LBP's most touted feature is the level creator, not only can you create your own levels, with a very easy to use and fairly deep creator, but you can download levels created by other players, which can extend the life of the game considerably, if you enjoy its physics. Regardless, as previously stated, the level creator likes to crash, so save often(Even if it can crash during a save, fun). You can also download additional tools and costumes fro Sackboy on PSN, some are free and some are paid(Albeit on the cheap), if you are the creative type you are bound enjoy this.

 Charm is something that this game is made of. Sackboy is impossibly cute, and so is the whole world crafted on the main game's levels. NPCs look as if they were made of wood or other similar materials, and so does most objects on the game. Everything looks as if it was made, built or crafted which is very, very cool. To make it even better, you can customize Sackboy with all sorts of different costumes and pieces, and he looks adorable with everything. Furthermore, the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, with many different types of music, and they all fit the overall game perfectly. Basically, both visually and soundwise, the game manages to pull you into it's world, sometimes, it's hard not to smile. Until you get stuck on something, that is.
 Little Big Planet on the PSP is not awful, but unless you can get over the physics, you won't have much fun, and even then, it's a pretty glitchy game. The game does have a fantastic presentation, and sometimes levels have some pretty entertaining set pieces or obstacles to get through, but they weren't enough for me to enjoy the game.
 5.0 out of 10.

Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost Impressions Wing(EW), X-chapter.

 Gundam HeavyArms Kai(EW)

 Clearly a unit to be played at long range, his overall ammo was decreased since vanilla, so now you've got to manage your resources more effectively. HeavyArms only has two melee attacks, and one of them is devastating, but good luck landing it!

Gundam Deathscythe Hell(EW)

 Feels very similar to his vanilla counterpart, but with shorter cool downs and better tracking on his beam, Deathscythe performs best at mid-close range, and has the tools to engage more or less safely.

Tallgeese III

 Tallgeese III is a fantastic unit that performs well at any range, making it adaptable and easy to pick up and play. While it is a bit slower than before, it's mobility is pretty good overall, and for a 2500, you can't go wrong with Tallgeese.

After War Gundam X

 Gundam Double X

 Has a new Assist attack! Double X received a couple of mobility buffs and a couple of negligible nerfs on the properties of its beams, but nothing too major. Double X is a unit that can do well at any distance, but excels at mid range. And it has, in my opinion, the best gerobi beam in the entire game.

Gundam Virsago Chest Break

 Virsago got buffed across the board to match its new 2500(from 2000) cost. Regardless, it more or less plays the same, it has a variety of tools for zoning, and a pretty neat assist that locks the enemy in place, for just the right amount of time to unleash its gerobi beam.

 NEW Gundam X Divider

 I wasn't expecting much from the new Gundam X, but oh boy, it's incredibly fun. X has plenty of projectiles that work better at medium range and cover a very nice area, they even do a respectable amount of damage! Futhermore, it has a one-off assist that summons two units that perform a nuclear gerobi beam. And its burst attack? A massive Gerobi beam that covers a very wide area. Pretty fancy for a 2500, its only flaw, that I found, is that while dashing on the ground, it takes a couple of seconds for it to break, as it slides through the ground.

BONUS

Turn X

 I didn't notice anything new or any major change, so it more or less should be the same as vanilla. Another mid-to-close-range unit, you really don't want the Turn X to get on your face, else expect to receive a ton of damage.