Now Playing: Mobile Suit Gundam - Gundam vs. Gundam NEXT PLUS

 Sweet Jesus almighty, this game, THIS GAME!

 Holy. I just took this UMD for a spin, didn't think I'd think in about 2-3 hours, I had stuff to do... Ah well, this game is really, really good. I always felt that the Gundam VS series were tailor made for me, ever since I first placed my grubby hands on Federation VS Zeon.

 As for this game... It's certainly slower than Extreme VS, not necessarily a bad thing. It's got 66 units, more than vanilla Extreme VS, if I'm not mistaken(But then again, this was an updated port of Gundam VS Gundam Next, which in turn was Gundam VS Gundam's sequel, so technically, this is Maxi Boost's equivalent, or rather, Full Boost with all the DLC). I've tried about 8 different units, and some play noticeably different that their Extreme VS counterparts.

 Route system is completely different, more akin to the Gundam VS Z Gundam game, I actually prefer Extreme Vs', but whatcha gonna do? I am starting to prefer these stages to Extreme VS' though, these feel a bit larger and with a lot more variety in terrain and obstacles.

 All in all? I wish I had a secure way of taking the PSP and some UMDs without fearing the screen or the UMDs scratching, as having these game when I'm out on a trip would be amazing.

Now Playing: Dark Cloud 2

 The only game in which you can create an energy pack out of milk cans.

 If you allow me to dust off a sentence that I love using: "I used to love this game when I was younger, but I never got around finishing it", oh yes, it's another one of those. I invested a solid hour into the game, and I'm impressed. Enhancing weapons is pretty straight forward, and I love how rogue-like it feels! There are traps, healing pools, dungeons, I think, are randomly generated and weapons break. Combat is very basic, and surprisingly, very enjoyable.

 The game has a certain je ne se quois about it that reminds me of Okage: Shadow King, albeit a bit toned down, this is a good thing. Graphics are gorgeous, certainly among the PS2's best, not just on a technical level, but on an artistic one, characters are very unique and stylized, and the environments, so far, are very colorful and detailed(I might've just copy/pasted this into my notes, so as to tweak it for the review, sneaky!).

 Overall, I'm very impressed.

Month Overview: April

Games completed in April:
 Shadow Madness                                                                                             4.0
 Killzone - Liberation                                                                                         4.5
 Orphen - Scion of Sorcer                                                                                 5.0
 Flower, Sun and Rain                                                                                       6.0
 Castlevania - The Dracula X Chronicles                                                            10
 Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road                                                    7.5
 Final Fantasy VIII                                                                                            7.0

Overview:
 Gee wiz, this month started out pretty grim, and in the end, most games shared a common theme: When they were at their best, they were very good, but at their worst? They were terrible. Shadow Madness had a lot of promise, they just needed a more experienced team to make it shine. Flower, Sun and Rain had that amazing Suda 51 flavor, which made it triumph over it's oh so dull gameplay.  As for Final Fantasy VIII, I think that 7.0 was a bit too generous, but at times I was having a blast with it, it's a shame its worst was so, so bad, terrible gameplay design coupled with some very stupid plot devices... This month definitely had ups and downs, with Castlevania - The Dracula X Chronicles easily being the highlight of the month(Spoiler?).

Game of April:

 A Castlevania game that can satisfy any kind of fan. You like the Retrovanias? You get one of the most sought after, and dare I say better, retrovanias in the form of Rondo of Blood, but you also get a phenomenal remake that, in my opinion, is far superior. Retrovanias are not your thing? There's also a remastered version of Symphony of the Night, arguably the best Metroidvania, the game has aged gracefully and is every bit as good as it once were. The only drawback would be the fact that you actually need to unlock Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night by playing through the remake, but you don't even have to finish it, heck, you don't even need to finish the levels, just pick up the Icons and exit the levels, they are easier to find than some of the maidens actually!

Runner-up:

 If there's one game that I won't soon forget, it's Flower, Sun and Rain. Suda 51 just can't help himself but to make thought-provoking games. It's a wonderfully bizarre trip to the weird, a cast of memorable and downright insane characters that are Suda's staple... The game would've been a borefest would it not have such an engrossing atmosphere and narrative, even though it can get confusing at times. Funnily enough, this is a game that I can't easily reccomend, this is not a game for everyone, but a very niche audience that enjoys off-the-wall writing and can forgive clunky, unpolished and dull gameplay.

Review #113: Final Fantasy VIII

 Grinding and Farming Fantasy VIII.

 If you didn't like Final Fantasy VII, chances are you never played it at launch or you simply don't like JRPGs, but if both are true and you still didn't like it.... tough luck, you missed out on one of the best RPGs of all time. When Final Fantasy 8 was first released, it received tons of  glowing critiques, some even calling it the best in the series. How did it age? It aged fairly well, problem being, the core mechanics were terrible even when at the time of its release!

  You take the role of Squall, a secluded young man who happens to be a trainee at Balamb Garden. This place trains young men and women into SeeDs, mercenaries of sorts, if they pay is good, they'll kill whatever they have to kill. The game's theme is that of "Love", as the game's logo suggests, it's all about the adorkable Rinoa trying to pry open Squall's secluded self. Also, there's a sort of second protagonist in the form of Laguna, an Esthar Soldier with a very carefree attitude. Every now and again, the game will switch to Laguna's exploits alongside his friends, and in the end, both narratives tie up together. Whether you can accept that Rinoa would keep trying to woo a jerk who evidently wants nothing to do with her(at the beginning, anyways) isn't really the biggest problem with the story, but rather, how dumb it can get. When the script is at its finest, it's fantastic, the story and seeing characters interact with each other was what kept me going, but when the script gets dumb... it gets really, really dumb. I found myself wanting to punch the screen at least twice due to how stupidly some characters were behaving.

 In this installment, Squaresoft decided to completely change how the combat system works. They had always tried to change it up between installments, but this was the first time that they wound up with a total blunder. Final Fantasy 7's most impressive spells were the Summoning Magic, in which you'd summon a giant beast or monster of sorts to wreck havoc upon your enemy, so this time they made Summoning, now named Guardian Forces or GF for short, the foundation of the system. You must "junction" your character to a GF, characters that don't have GFs junctioned to them can only Attack, but with a junction GF you gain access to "Magic", "GF", "Draw" and "Item", plus, certain GFs grant you bonus abilities, to a maximum of four, attack being unswappable. GFs also level up alongside you, and earning AP through battles allow them to learn passive or active skills that you can then equip to your character. So far, so good.

 Now then, first of all, Equipment has been done away with. You don't equip armor or accessories, rather, you junction magic into your stats to enhance them. Actually, you can upgrade weapons, but you need to gather Random Drops from enemies, Steal them from the enemies or play the Card Game(More on this in a bit). This means that the Mug command, that Diablos has, quickly becomes essential to upgrading your weapons, as random drops are a pain to get, and sometimes, when the game is feeling naughty, it makes the items that you can steal, different from the ones they drop, know what that means? Farming enemies until they drop it, and the drop percentage is very low. Although I got through the entire first disc not being able to upgrade anyone's weapon and I did just fine(Turns out the Wendingo held the steel pipes!).

 Doesn't sound like much fun, huh? It gets worse. I mentioned how you had to junction magic to your stats, right? Well, that is what the "Draw" command is there for. You draw magic out of your enemies. This is an incredibly slow process, you draw from 1 to 9 charges of magic per Draw. And you must do this every time you come across an enemy that has new Magic. And the best part about it? You won't even use this magic because the amount of magic that you junction to your stats is related to how much it buffs up your stats! Oh, and each of the 6 characters has their own individual magic pool. The only times I actually used magic, was the magic that the boss was carrying, instead of "stocking" it I'd use it against it, which is kinda amusing. True, there are other ways to earn magic, you can come across a few "Draw Zones", that let you draw once every couple of hours, or you can... play the Card Game to earn cards and then use the Card Mod ability on them  to earn a certain amount of a certain spell, or you can, hopefully, use another ability to turn your items into Magic. Whatever way you choose, it's gonna be a drag. As bothersome as it is, the game loves to split up your party at times, and when that happens there's an option to swiftly exchange all that is junctioned from one character to another, including Magic and the ability setup, which was fairly convenient.

 Then there are Limit Breaks. The good? Now they are more interactive than before, for example, Squall get's a sort of rhythm mini-game, while with Zell you get a list of commands, and you have to pick which ones to execute in a 5 second gap. This was a great change. The bad? Unless you engage in sidequests, you probably won't get to see them. Limit Breaks now trigger when you are low on health and at random. You can press circle, which normally switches you between the characters that you can use a turn with, until it shows up though. The thing is... I never got to be low on health, and I didn't even use healing items or spells. All throughout the game all I did, whenever I wasn't drawing magic, was have Squall junctioned with the strongest magics available on strength and the passive Strength boosts and have him use his normal attack, Squall has a unique trait to him, press R1 right when he attacks an enemy and you basically get a free critical hit, and then have my other two characters using Guardian Forces. Guardian Forces take a little time to cast, but they act as shields, so the GFs lose HP when attack while summoning them(They can "die", but there are special items to heal and revive them). This "strategy" got me throughout the first 3 discs with almost no problems at all. If you mean to get the Ultimate Weapons, which probably means you are gonna make trips to the hard encounters at the Island Closest to Hell and the Underground Sea Facility, you may need to change up your plans though!

 The game offers plenty of side quests, although you might need to consult FAQs to even know that they exist. There are about 6 secret GFs, a secret boss(Ultimate Weapon), a secret dungeon and even an optional town for you explore. There's two islands, The Island closest to Hell and the Island closes to Heaven that house some of the strongest random encounters in the game, and you never get to go to them on the main quest, only by exploring on your own. And then there's the Card Game, Triple Triad. Triple Triad can be fun if you get into it, and it's fairly in depth. Each Town has its own rules, and when the Card Queen visits, the rules can change. It's also a decent alternative to farming, some people can even get Squall's best weapon on the first disc just by playing the card game. And since the game does the stupid "Enemies level up alongside you" mechanic, this is a great way to keep your levels low. But then again, this also means that instead of playing the game, you'll be spending hours playing a card game, so pick your poison. They also changed the way you earn money. Killing monsters was too mainstream, now you must raise your SeeD rank by taking written tests(I'm not joking!) or according to how you play the game, sometimes the game will decide to lower it for no reason. Well, according to your SeeD rank is how much money you will earn whenever the game decides to give you money. Who came up with this?!

 Back when the game's first screenshots were shown, it was easy to see that graphics were a huge selling point, and... they have aged fine, considering it's a PS1 game. Easily one of the best looking PS1 games, the pre-rendered backgrounds look extremely well even today(And it's easy to notice, coming from Shadow Madness!), and character models feature a lot of detail. Monsters look particularly fierce and menacing, and there's some fairly funny animations(The Wending dribbling you like a basket ball!). Music is also great, albeit I doubt it has the lasting power that FF7's soundtrack had.

 The good news? It's not a terrible game, and when the game is at its greatest, when you don't need to draw magic, when you are actually playing and having fun, when the script is not being dumb? It's really, really fun. But at its worst it becomes a chore to play it, and that's why it will never be as good as 4, 6 or 7.
 7.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Hexyz Force

 Uh oh

 I wanted to wait a little longer before translating my first impressions into text, but if I waited any longer, it wouldn't be my "first impressions" anymore! Well, I picked Leon over Cecilia for my first playthrough, and while the storyline seems mildly interesting, it also has a... cliche air about it.

 But what matters most, at the moment, the combat system... I don't know if I'm cool with it. Seems there are two types of weapons, some consume RF(Mana?) and others... break. I don't know if I'm gonna like having my weapons break all the time and having to carry multiple, unfixeable, weapons. I'm the kind of guy that easily gets attached to stuff, so I don't want to find a really cool weapon only to have it break on me! I'm not saying that it's a bad design choice, I'm just saying that it's not my kind of game.

Review #112: Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road

 Dragon Dragon, Rock the Drag-on Dragooon Baaaaall Zeeeee

 Another year, another(old) Dragon Ball Z that I get to play. Shin Budokai is the natural evolution of the Budokai games, which would latter transform into Burst Limit(Which sadly didn't get a sequel).

 The biggest change were the basic mechanics of the game. Instead of Punch and Kick, you now get Rush(weak) and Smash(Strong) attacks, the Smash Attack being comboable from Rush attacks, and can be charged. Special moves got reduced to 3 per character, Back+Ki and Forward+Ki are the special attacks, while Up+Ki produces the Ultimate attack, which consume 5 stocks of the Ki bar. Pressing Down+Ki is the Transformation, if your character has one. This also means that the whole Capsule System was scrapped, thankfully, since you now get a full moveset from the outset. Regarding transformations, probably due to the PSP's limitations, you can only have one. Which means that when you pick Goku, you either pick SSJ1, SSJ2, SSJ3 or SSJ4, and you go from Base Goku to the form you picked. You still get a Guard button, and tapping it alongside the directional pad towards your opponent, makes you dodge their attacks and appear behind them. Lastly, there are new Burst Aura mechanics tied to the R Button, you can grant yourself invulnerability, chase attacks, sidestep faster, stunning attacks and enter a Super Armor mode. All these new mechanics... you must learn by yourself. The manual doesn't have any information about them, and there is no tutorial, maybe the game expects you to come from Shin Budokai 1? Regardless, you must learn this by yourself.

 There's a nice variety of modes: Another Road(Story Mode), Arcade Mode(Self explanatory), Z Trial(Which houses Survival, Challenge and various routes of Time Attack), Network Battle(Self explanatory) and Training(Self explanatory). Notice anything? There is no "Versus CPU" mode. While you can emulate matches in Training Mode, it's not the same. Why it wasn't included is beyond me. Story Mode sounded really good on paper, you play as Trunks once he returned to his timeline, and must now face the Buu threat, which makes sense. Trunks then goes back in time to bring the Z-Fighters, post Buu saga, to his time in order to defeat Buu now. And then it all goes down the drain. The script is terrible, in the franchise, post Buu Vegeta is a very different man from, say, Cell Saga Vegeta... but now Vegeta is back to his murderous self(Probably because that's how he got most of his fans, and how he is mostly remembered for). They also rehash plot devices, like Vegeta letting himself get possessed by Babidi. Again. Which is really dumb. Gohan, who is now in Ultimate Gohan form and no longer needs to go Super Saiyan... goes Super Saiyan. And they completely botched the power levels, having Bardock(Who has gained popularity, so now they are putting him in every game) fight Pikkon and Ultimate Gohan to a standstill. And Goku meeting his real father for the first time is never touched upon besides "Now that my father is here bla bla". And the story quickly dumbs down to "Babidi created clones of everyone, you must now fight everyone's clones".

 The story is terrible, yes, but what about the mode itself? Most "stages" on each chapter place you on a field, in which enemy units target you or cities. You fly around and when you make contact with an enemy unit, you engage on a 1 on 1 battle. You can also heal yourself, and the cities, by standing over them This mode is impossibly repetitive, they usually resort to having you fight the same enemies over and over again. Sometimes the enemies have Senzu beans which double as lives... so you must fight them again. Chapter four is the worst by far, each mission in the chapter has you fighting the same Meta-Cooler enemies, and in one mission, you have to survive 300 seconds of endless Meta-Cooler clones. The fights are not terribly hard, they are just terribly boring! Plus, every time you engage an enemy, they have to trade one liners with your character, then fight, and after there is another winner... another one liner. These dialogue bubbles can be skipped by pressing start, but they still take 2-3 seconds to load before you can skip them, coupled with how many times you have to fight the same enemies over and over again.... it's quite vexing.

 The game offers a respectable roster of about 18 characters. Most characters are very different from one another, except maybe Goku and Adult Gohan. While Transformations tend to have at least one different special move, they do share the basic moveset. The game offers a very simple customization system, each character has a nine slot grid where you can attach cards, that you earn after each fight in story mode or that you can buy with money earned by battling, these cards raise the stats of your character. I'd rather have this than having my movesets crippled due to my lack of capsules, like the Budokai series. Lastly, the Challenge Mode offers 50 different challenges, some as dumb as performing a Ultimate attack, to some harder one like dealing a certain amount of damage in one combo.

 The overall presentation is excellent, character models are bright, colorful and detailed, and they move just as they did in the Budokai series. Movement and action is very smooth, with rare instances of slowdown when using the Aura to parry certain beam attacks. The game offers dual voice acting, English and Japanese, I can't speak for the English dub, but the Japanese dub is spot-on. Music is all taken from the Budokai series, I never cared too much for the Budokai music, but it's alright.

 Without having to endure such a tedious Story Mode to unlock everything, the game might've beeen more enjoyable as a whole, as the fast, smooth revamped gameplay is very entertaining. Not having a conventional VS CPU mode sucks, but there are plenty of Single Player modes to occupy your time.
 7.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai - Another Road

 Pretty dang good.

 I like Dragon Ball Z, even though I don't love it as many other anime fans, but I like it. I actually started with the original Dragon Ball anime, back when I was a kid, and I remember adoring it(Surprisingly, I now dislike it, the manga is alright though). When it came to the "Z"(Or post-time skip) saga, I actually came across it through videogames and not anime, which probably explains why I'm always so drawn towards the games and not the show.

 Among the games, my top two are definitely Legends(PS1) and Super Dragon Ball Z, with the Budokai series close behind. Shin Budokai is the evolution of the Budokai series, and it feels, much, much better. I'll leave the specifics for the Review, but I love the new engine and mechanics. The game is also incredibly smooth and fast-paced, and it plays like a dream. The game also looks fantastic, and the animation is top-notch.

 Buuuuuuut, Story Mode is a drag. It involves cities that restore your HP, and Senzu Beans that enemies carry as well, which means you have to fight them multiple times, and obscure ways to unlock alternate paths(Usually having to fail the objectives).... I don't like it. Also, you are forced to play as Mirai Trunks. I love Trunks, but I'd much rather play as Adult Gohan. Speaking of characters, I love how Vegeto and Gogeta have their own slots. I always loved Vegeto's design(And back when I knew DBZ through the games, I didn't know that he was a fusion), so having to perform a fusion, in the Budokai series, to play as him was always annoying.