Mobile Suit Gundam - Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus Impressions part 3

Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam

ZZ Gundam

 IT'S A WRESTLER! Another unit that is fairly different to its Extreme VS counterpart. While I prefer its Extreme VS incarnation, hot damn, I love how the melee moveset works, it has like 3 different grabs, one of them being a pile driver. Epic. As a mid-long range unit, it's really friggin' good, for just a 2000 unit, and the grabs deal a ton of damage to boot.

NEW Hamma Hamma

 This one. WOW. It's like the Rozen Zulu in that it has extending limbs... however, this extends to its melee as well, its arm flies towards the enemy with the beam saber. It can also extend its arms to grapple towards the enemy. Not my kind of suit, but I like it and wouldn't mind seeing it return, but I guess the Rozen Zulu kinda took its place.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

Sazabi

 Fairly similar to how it plays in Extreme VS, but it feels a bit weaker. Maybe because the last time I played it, it was a 3000 in Full Boost. Instead of a green gerobi-like beam, it has a sort of funnel carpet-boming that is kinda cool, but hard to hit with. All in all? While I quite like it in Extreme VS, here it lacks some oomph, specially compared to other 2000 units I've used in this one, regardless, it has one amazing shotgun attack that comes in the form of a charge attack, but, I think, it's the fastest charging move I've ever seen in the VS series! Pretty useful, strong and charges quite fast, the only downside it that it has a tiny bit of startup before it finally goes off.

Nu Gundam

 It has the same basic toolset as its Extreme VS counterpart, minus the Beam Shield which is now activated when Nu Gundam has less than 100 HP. Also, it has a special melee combo that looks downright brutal. I prefer this version to Extreme VS, sheesh, I wish they'd give it that combo back!

Mobile Suit Gundam F91

NEW Vigna Ginha

 I kinda like it. It's an all around 1000 cost unit, with a rather basic moveset. It has a swirling shooting move pretty reminiscent of Full Cloth Crossbones Gundam. It also has the Berga Giros' Drill that stuns. It's a pretty alright unit, I kinda like it and I wouldn't mind seeing it return, Cecily deserves to go back into the playable realm, but the Berga Giros kinda took its place.

Gundam Formula 91

 Whoa! This one is fairly different. In this game, Formula 91 can switch between a long-range only form and a mid-close range form. Extreme VS kinda merged tools from both forms into a single one, and in my opinion, is much better. However! F91's base form looks really badass, holding a bazooka in one arm and a beam rifle in the other.

Bonus

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

V2 Gundam

 It's basically the same as Extreme VS. Really. I've not much else to say, it's really good, it has both modes, it has the Wings of Light.... it's basically the same damn mobile suit!

Mobile Suit Gundam - Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus Impressions part 2

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Gundam Mark II / Super Gundam(Emma)

 Fairly different to Extreme VS, it has 3 modes instead of 2, and they are not timed! Works fairly well at mid-close range, the Super Gundam being only good at mid-long range, since it has no melee and the missiles don't work up close. I actually prefer its Extreme Vs counterpart.

NEW Gundam Mark II(Kamille)

 This is actually a FB DLC unit, but since Full Boost's DLC was made up of, mostly, clones, I didn't bother with it. As for Next Plus? It's really, really good. It's a 1000 unit, instead of Emma's 2000, but it has a wide variety of tools at its disposal with no need to swap equipment, unlike Emma. The melee combos look much more badass, and it has an specially badass melee kick. I like this one a lot!

Hyaku Shiki

 My favorite Mobile Suit! In Next Plus it plays more like its Gundam VS Zeta Gundam Counterpart and... I like it that way. Its melee combos now have fancy kicks, which look amazing, and instead of flying on top of a Mobile Armor, when boosting, it uses the Mega Bazooka Launcher to propel itself, it looks hilarious! The Mega Bazooka Launcher takes a long while to shoot, which isn't so neat. All in all, I prefer this version over Extreme Vs's!

The O

 Fairly different to Extreme VS, I don't really like it much. In this one, its assist can let it see the enemy boost gauges, which is certainly unique. It also has Gundam VS Zeta Gundam's Awaken system, which is kinda neat. Thing is.... its moveset is fairly limited, it doesn't have much tools, which really, really sucks.

Qubeley

 Not too different from Extreme VS, here its a 3000 unit that can fight fairly well at close-mid range. Probably due to its cost, it feels really, really strong(This is the first 3000 I've used in this game!).

Bonus

Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam

NEW Qubeley Mark II(Elpeo Ple)

 I was expecting it to be fairly different to Haman's Qubeley, hey, Extreme VS' Haman's Qubeley and Puru Two's Qubeley are different from each other, and.... they were very different indeed!  Elepeo's Qubeley is much better at long ranges than Haman's, but it certainly isn't as powerful(It is a 1000 unit after all). It also has two different modes, it can enter a ranged-only funnel based mode that runs out of ammo fairly quickly but grants it a longer range. I quite like it.

Qubeley Mark II(Ple Two)

 I expected this one, since it's a 2000 cost unit, to be a mix of both Qubeleys... I was wrong, The other Mark II is a mix of this one and Haman's. This Qubeley... is my least favorite, by far, it's a ranged only unit, like Elpeo's Qubeley secondary mode. I didn't like this unit at all.

Mobile Suit Gundam - Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus Impressions part 1

 Mobile Suit Gundam

RX 78 2 Gundam

 Pretty basic, but pretty decent all around unit. Definitely a great unit to start with, it's pretty similar to its Extreme VS counterpart but with less tools.

NEW Guncannon

 A long range unit, it has some hilarious melee moves that end with it falling on the ground! It can also throw a giant rock. I'd love for this unit to return in Extreme VS!

NEW Guntank

 A Long-range exclusive unit, it has no form of close-quarters defense, so if anything gets close, it's as good as dead. It was basically replaced by the much more adaptable Tank in Extreme VS.

NEW Zaku II Char Custom

 For a 1000 unit, it does have a nice selection of tools at its disposal. I'm especially fond of the Movement boost that allows it to zip through the battlefield 3 times as fast as the other units!

Zeong

 I didn't like the Zeong in Full Boost, it was a bit too complex for my taste. Well, its Gundam VS Gundam incarnation plays very differently to Extreme VS, and it's very strong and much simpler to use, however, it's only good at mid-long range, with no melee tools at its disposal.

NEW Rick Dom

 A fairly straightforward close-mid range unit, it's a bit boring in my opinion, but it can summon the other Tri-Stars as its Support attack! It has a stunning sub weapon that is fairly hard to hit with. All in all, while I'm not too fond of its moveset, the Tri-Stars were fairly iconic characters, the Rick Dom should make a comeback on Extreme VS!

Acguy

 Fairly similar to its Extreme VS counterpart, it has less support calls, but I think the support Acguys come out in a funnier way in this one. They just dash and jump towards their target! It has different and longer melee chains in this one.

Bonus
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Z Gundam

 The Acguy was similar to its Extreme VS counterpart, but the Z Gundam is almost identical. A 2000 unit that works pretty nicely at close-mid range. While it supposedly gets a boost when it goes "Newtype", the melee attacks become so slow that they are a hindrance more than anything else, which really, really blows.

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.