Now Playing: Gran Turismo

 IT WAS A FREE GAME

 I'm not the biggest Racing game nut out there, and the few racing games I like are of the Arcadey or Mascot-Racer variety, not the simulator style. But I kinda liked Gran Turismo 2 back when I was younger, which is why I wanted to buy it at some point in time later down the road. That time came last week, when I set out to purchase Fighting Force and Gran Turismo 2, after handing me down the games he says "Hmmm, Gran Turismo 2? Y'sure? I think I prefer GT 1.... Know what? here, it's yours" and he put GT on top of the other two, for free! So yeah, Racing isn't my favorite genre and what not... but FREE GAME. FREE GAME!

 For my first, and short, session(Since I've to study, dammit) I finished the first License challenge and finished the first cup(First place, baby!). It's alright. I admit I found myself more engrossed in the race than I'd care to admit, and a couple of the songs were badass. I also tried my luck at one of the Event Races... turns out the other racers aren't necessarily rounded up to your stats, these cars just took off and I didn't have a single chance to catch up to them, guess I gotta buy some new wheels. And that is a pun, because you can buy both cars and parts, so I could be talking about cars or wheels. I'm hilarious, I know.

 Bottom line: It is a quality game, but it ain't my kind of game. Still, Free game, baby!

Month Overview: November

Games finished in November:
 Crash - Mind over Mutant                                                   4.0
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles                                             6.5
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus                  6.5
 Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls Ultimate Evil Edition               9.0
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 - Mutant Nightmare         8.0
 TMNT - Mutant Melee                                                        5.0
 Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations                          6.0
 Rampage 2 - Universal Tour                                               3.0
 Nightmare Creatures                                                           5.5
 Sonic Battle                                                                         6.0
 Dragon's Crown                                                                  5.5
 One Piece - Grand Adventure                                             8.0
 Fighting Force                                                                     6.0
 Dragon Ball Evolution                                                        3.5  
 Crimson Gem Saga                                                             1.5
 Saint Seiya Omega - Ultimate Cosmos                              1.0

 Holy mother of... over 10 games in ONE moth, and it was one of the most taxing months of the year, when the last tests and assignments took place. Hot damn. Sadly, there were a ton of blunders this month: Crash - Mind over Mutant was such a huge let down, I genuinely enjoyed Crash of the Titans, I was aching to give it a whirl... and it wound taking away CotT's best parts and building upon the worst ones, Rampage 2 was another I was wanting to play... for over 10 years, and it took away elements from the first one, what the hell!? Dragon Ball Evolution wasn't SO bad, but it pales in comparison to all the other Dragon Ball games and great fighters on the system. Crimson Gem Saga was another disappointment, the art looked so good, it was localized by Atlus and it was going up in price, it had to be good! And then there's SS Omega that has such a bad CPU that makes playing through the game a chore. It seems I finished the month on a low note, Crimson Gem Saga, Dragon Ball Evolution and Saint Seiya Omega in a row, dammit, I've no luck with PSP games! I also want to mention Dragon's Crown, for some reason it seems to have gotten mostly high scores, so it seems I'm part of the minority that didn't like it, oh well! Also, four TMNT games in one Month? November is now, officially, Turtle month.

Game of November:

 I've heard that a lot of people had issues with Diablo 3, but I don't see'em. Sure, it's not Diablo 2, the story and characters are pretty lame, personalized stat spreads are also gone... but I had a blast with the game. It also happens to have... INFINITE REPLAY VALUE. I loved this one, I liked the variety in the skills, and how they looked. The Crusader also happened to have some very badass pieces of equipment, and being able to change the look of my equipment for a small fee was a little touch that made me enjoy the game much, much more.

 Runner-up:

 Know what makes a licensed game a great game? When you could take away all the licensed stuff from it and it'd still remain entertaining. That's the case with Grand Adventure, the gameplay is spot-on, tight controls, simple but fun mechanics, great graphics, surprisingly engaging Single Player Mode... other licensed games wish they could be this good.

Review #176: Saint Seiya Omega - Ultimate Cosmos

 Lemme tell you the definition of insanity.... expecting this game's AI to change.

 Saint Seiya Omega is the highly polarizing anime-only sequel to Saint Seiya, and like any popular Shonen focused on fights between powerful characters, it got itself its very own videogame.  This is an arena-based 1-on-1 fighting game, featuring 24(Technically 18) characters from the show, and an all-new storyline.

 The game is pretty light on modes: Story, Arcade, VS and Training. Story Mode is divided in 7 different chapters, each one following the storyline of one of the six main heroes and one featuring Seiya. I... I don't understand Japanese, so I had no idea of what was going on, besides the fact that they are trying to collect 7 gems in order to get the Triton Scale(An 'armor'), and each scenario is fully voiced... and you can't fast-forward the dialogue, or skip it, so... you are in for the long haul. Something pretty neat is that they actually created an all new storyline for the game, and it features a Triton Scale armor for each of the six main characters. Sadly, the new armor is the same for all characters(The girl gets an skirt, but it's otherwise the same armor), but it looks cool and it's a neat gimmick. Arcade is your typical Arcade ladder, and the other two modes are pretty self explanatory.

 Gameplay is pretty barebones, there's an strong and a weak attack, while circle performs special moves that consume a bit of the Cosmos Gauge. Holding the L button and pressing Square or Triangle produces a Super move, but spending the three levels of the gauge allows you to enter a 'super mode' by pressing L+Circle that grants you super armor, and pressing L+Circle again lets you use an Ultimate attack. R is used to throw your opponent, and if you plan of playing this by your lonesome, you are going to be using that button a whole lot....

 Here's the deal, I had no one to play this game with, and the AI is terrible, so I have no proper way of gauging how good the combat is, lemme elaborate... The AI's sole purpose in 'life' is to block. Doesn't matter which difficulty you choose, they will block, and block, and block. Oh, I'm not saying the AI is hard to battle, not at all! Y'see, there's no way to break guards, there's no guard meter and you can only do chip damage with Super moves... or Throw them. So you have two choices when dealing with the CPU, either try to attack them and win by time out, because they will only block, or Throw them over and over and over again, doesn't matter which difficulty you are in, the Throw is always your best tool. ALWAYS. There's no way to win with this game, either get bored by time outs, or get bored by repeating the strategy all the time. The harder difficulties makes them more aggressive, which lets you score more hits, but it's still not enough. And even if I had other players to play with, the only way to unlock the characters is through Arcade and Story Modes, so you HAVE to play against the CPU. I spent 80% of my time with the game pressing the R button. I had absolutely no fun with this game at all.

 The graphics are pretty neat, the game is very colorful, the environments are pretty and the character models... are alright. For some reason, the heights are a bit off, y'see, the Wolf guy(Harute?) has a crouched-like position by default, but even while standing, he looks tiny when compared to his friends, it's very jarring. Gembu, the Libra Saint, also looks huge, while he should be closer to Seiya's height. And I've a bone to pick with the animations, there's only like three different throws in the entire game, spread out through all 24 characters, and three females out of four share the same walking animation, with their hand resting on their hips... but then again, while the fourth one(Shaina) walks a tiny bit different, she also rests her hand on her hip. Is that how women walk in Japan or something? I mean, really. At least the soundtrack is really good, and the voice acting is excellent as well.

 I'm gonna be honest here, the score I'm gonna rate it ain't how good the game was, but how much I enjoyed it. Who knows, maybe with other people to play with, this game wouldn't be such a bust. But as it stands, even if you are a die-hard fan of the show, this game is a terrible pick to play by yourself.
 1.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Saint Seiya Omega Ultimate Cosmos

 'tseems I'm on a roll with bad PSP games.

 So.. Saint Seiya is one of my most hated series ever. It's sexist, it's dumb and it lacks any semblance of logic, but love the concept. I haven't seen Saint Seiya Omega yet, but what little I've seen, it seems to top the old series. Females no longer need the mask, which probably means that they did away with that sexist "if a man sees me, I must love him or kill him", or the fact that while females had to discard their femininity, most of the male Saints were HUGE ladyboys, women without breasts, if you will. Also, it seems that they are finally applying some kind of thought into battles, like when... Gembu or Kiki berated the bronzies for having their Cloths tank all the damage. Regardless, it seems that fans of the older show hate it, but the old show was terrible, so what do they know? I mean, really. And I'm not hating on them for liking it, I LOVE Hokuto no Ken, and it's equally sexist and dumb, plus, it has a ton of plot holes, just because I love something, doesn't mean I can't criticize it.

 As for the game... it's terrible. I mean... Playing against the CPU is infuriating, they block everything, and I mean everything. So there's two ways to win: Either mash attacks and win by timeout, which is boring, or spam the R button and win by repetitious boredome, your choice. It isn't even hard, since all they do is block, all you have, and can, do is block. Because there's not way to break guards, or any kind of guard meter. You can up the difficulty, which is a good idea as it will make them more aggressive, thus making them block less. They still block a lot though, and the Throws(R button) will get net you victories all the time. So... yeah, I can't properly gauge the gameplay since the CPU is so damnedly annoying, but I can at least attest that if you don't have anybody else to play this with, you are gonna have a baaaaad time.

Review #175: Crimson Gem Saga

 Oh, this game. Man, this game. I... This game. Words falter me.

 I love JRPGs, they are my jam, my thing, mah thang. Crimson Gem Saga is one of the worst JRPGs I've played in a long, long time, getting to finish this game was a struggle in and of itself, I even had to take a 3-4 month break since it got so repetitive, so dull, so boring. But y'know me, I just have to finish games, Rune Factory and Demon's Souls not withstanding, they are happening. Sometime.

 The story puts you in the role of Killian, a Chevalier who is late to his own graduation. Killian has a habit of oversleeping, playing on the "waking up late" trope that Crono popularized, and has a bit of a complex about second places, since that's where he usually lands. Eventually he wounds up with a rag-tag group and a quest to gather all the token McGuffins, the "wicked stones", before the token bad guy does. While the story does have its moments, particularly near the end of the game, overall it was pretty boring. It tries to make fun of common JRPG tropes, but at the end of the day, it ends up swimming in them. Terms are poorly explained, characters don't get much development, and you don't even get to fight your Rival(And Killian even makes a small joke about it)... I didn't feel motivated to see the quest through due to the story... nor due the gameplay, but more on that later. Even worse, the developers, or the publishers, were so arrogant as to think that this would be a part of a franchise, which means it ends on a cliffhanger with multiple plot threads hanging loose, and questions unanswered, and the game was so bad that they will never be answered. Probably.

 The game plays like any other turn based RPG, you have items or spells, and can choose to attack, defend or try to escape from battle. The game also has spells that require other party members to cast, which for some reason they thought that it was a selling point, which it isn't, that work as any other technique, except that it costs Mana from all the characters involved. Now then, where should I start tearing this game apart? Let's see, firstly, at the beginning of the game, Killian is VERY slow, and if an enemy sees you, you are basically screwed. Y'see, there's three ways to start the battle: Initiative, Enemy initiative or normally depending on when you touch the enemy goblin sprite(All battles are represented by a goblin, go figure). You gain the initiative by touching an enemy from behind before it sees you. A battle starts out normally if you touch an enemy after it sees you. But an enemy gets the initiative if it touches you a little while after seeing you. Y'see, Killian is so slow, and the range at which an enemy can see you is so large, that you'll start most battles getting hit, and ALL your characters get hit. It's not fun, it's annoying. Later in the game you can buy Mercury Boots that make you faster and allow you to get to the goblins more efficiently, but they are really expensive, and they might as well be a necessity.

 The game is a grindfest. Really. You need to grind for Experience, Skill Points, Money, Medallions and Gems. The game even lets you explore the first floors of the game's last dungeon since the start of Chapter 2, they want you to grind, they expect you to grind. First of all, Experience points, enemies are really strong. As in really, really strong. Enemies love to gang up on one of your characters, one single critical hit can mean the death of one of your character, since it allows them to hit you more times. On the flip-side, this also works for you, if you score a Critical hit, a button prompt appears on screen, and if you press X on time, you will score 1 or 2 more hits. That's nice. Regardless, random encounters will always be a threat, the game expects you to grind up to level 40(Starting at around 20) on chapter 2 before you can, more or less, comfortably finish it. On the other hand, bosses are really, really easy. I've said this time and time again, but if the random encounters are harder than a boss, you are doing something wrong.

 Then comes Skill Points, these are shared between characters, and are used to learn spells for each character. I never really had trouble with SP, but you might need to grind for these. Then comes Money, at the start of the game, it isn't really an issue, but in Chapter 2 you get your first chance to buy the Mercury Boots, and you need these, so you are gonna have to grind for money. The last chapter also gets incredibly expensive, it will take hundreds of fights to be able to buy equipment for all six characters. Oh, and you want to buy equipment for everyone, as characters leave your party at a moment's notice, and this even applies for the last dungeon. Medallions are used to level up your individual skills, and they come in four varieties: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. You need a bronze to level up a skill from level 1 to 2, a Silver to level them from 2 to 3. No skipping. Medallions are rare drops, and you need to level up your skills if you want to stand a chance during random encounters, so... yeah, get grinding. Lastly, gems are used to change the affinity of your weapons, I never really needed them, and since you are gonna be switching equipment, I never really felt the need to change the affinity of most of my weapons, only on rare occasions when they weren't dealing any damage due to resistances.

 Now then, I'm gonna tell you the secret to playing this game. First of all, these are the only skills that you need: Everyone must learn Grace of God, Killian, Gelt and Acelora must learn their Ultimate attack that hits all enemies, Spinel and Lahduk must learn their ultimate attacks that hits one enemy for massive damage, Spinel and Killian learn to need their dual technique, and Henson needs his mutli-hitting wind spells before he leaves the party, and once he returns... you don't really need him anymore. All the other skills, which there are many, you won't ever need. Except maybe the healing spells for Gelt and Killian. Now then, Spinel and Killian's dual technique deals 15-20% of the enemies current HP in damage, which you will abuse during bosses. Grace of God you will only need on the bonus bosses that have attacks that can wipe your whole party in one turn. Killian, Gelt and Acelora will spam their ultimate Attacks on random encounters so that you can grind fast, easily and safely, while Spinel and Ladhuk will be your boss killers. You can't buy mana potions, but your health and mana get refilled after each level up, and the enemies drop mana potions all the time. THIS is how they expect you to play the game. It's repetitive, it's boring, it's a waste of time. It's hilarious, because the game starts obnoxiously hard, but by the end of the game you get such strong equipment that the last bosses will have a hard time killing you. Seriously.

 Oh, I'm not done yet. Dungeons are very mazelike, with many forks that take you to different places, while at the same time having multiple exits that lead to the same places, seriously. A lot of the time they will have you going around hitting levers, switches or the such, going from one end of the dungeon to another. They aren't fun to explore, and the corridors are designed in such a way that they all look the same. And if you thought the dungeons were the only blunder, think again, during the story you will have to go from place to place for arbitrary reasons, you'll end up doing something like: Go to A, then go to B, then go to A, then go to C, then back to A and finally back to B. It's not fun, it's boring, it's repetitive, just like the battle system.

 The graphics are nice, kinda. Sprites are very colorful, and look good... sometimes. Some animations are clearly lacking frames, while others, like the Zombies, look downright beautiful. Most of the time they are pretty bad though. The music was very forgettable, and it doesn't even loop, when in dungeons or towns, the music will just stop for a few seconds before starting up again, it's hilarious, in a bad way. The voice acting is really good though, shame that the dialogue is so asinine.

 Crimson Gem Saga was a game I hated, I despised. It bored me to no end, and it'll be a day too soon if I never see this game again. I've heard that this was a massively improved sequel to 'Astonishia Story', which makes me wonder just how can a game be worse than this. This is a game that doesn't respect the player, it doesn't value their time. This is not a good game, avoid it like the plague.
 1.5 out of 10

Review #174: Dragon Ball Evolution

 Just what was I expecting?

 I'm a firm believer that if the gameplay is great, it doesn't matter how bad the game looks or sounds. Dragon Ball Evolution wants to puts that belief to the test, as it takes the gameplay from the Shin Budokai series but applies a new coat of paint based on the terrible, terrible movie. Dragon Ball Evolution is... quite a piece of work.

 Cutting to the chase, the game offers a Story Mode, Arcade Mode, Network Battling, Training, Mission and Survival. Right here, huge pet peeve of mine: No offline VS CPU mode, if you wanna battle specific CPU opponents, you gonna have to resort to the training mode. The Story Mode goes through the Movie's story, told via some very ugly traced character cut-outs that look nothing like the actors, I didn't stomach the entire movie, so I'm not sure just how faithful it is to the movie, but the script is terrible, turning Dragon Ball into an stereotypical American highschool soap opera. Getting an A or better rank on each "act" will unlock two bonus acts featuring a new storyline in which 'Neo Piccolo'(He introduces himself that way, but he is just Piccolo wearing a red cloak) comes to stir up some trouble, but is quickly offed by Goku. Again. Mission Mode works just like it did in Shin Budokai, it's a neat idea, but it doesn't explain you HOW to do what it asks you, "perform 4 dodges", but the only way to learn how to dodge is the instruction booklet. Survival is pretty self explanatory, but the roster is so small that just on my first 10 opponents I fought 5 Chi Chis and 3 Bulmas, while the next ten featured 3 Fu Lums, 2 Gokus and 2 Yamchas. Fun.

 Just as stated above, the game borrows Shin Budokai's engine, which means Aura, Aura Smash, Aura Shield, Pursuit Attacks are back and work just as well. Likewise, each character has a bunch of combos involving weak and strong attacks, alongside 3 Special moves that consume Ki and a Super Move that requires 5 Ki gauges. Gameplaywise it's just as good as Shin Budokai, the entire combo system is intact, as well as every nuance and technique. Which would be a good thing, if only the game wasn't so shamefully lazy. There's only 11 characters, and that's counting Neo Piccolo, and they had the gall to reuse animations. Off the top of my hat I can remember: Piccolo, Roshi and Gohan share one Special Move, Gohan and Roshi have the same walk animations, Piccolo and Gohan share the same square combos, Piccolo and Neo Piccolo only have a few different combos, mostly the ones that start with Square. They also pulled a Ubisoft, as it seems animating women was too expensive, which is why the three females(Mai, Chi Chi and Bulma) share the same walking animations. And did I mention they borrowed the Shin Budokai engine? This means it also borrows the long loading times.

 Graphics are... good, when looking at screenshots. I mean, character models are detailed, and they look sorta OKish when still, but every new animation, meaning not taken from Shin Budokai, is probably gonna look awkward. The female walk cycle, Yamcha's walk cycle, Goku's win pose, they all look very, very awkward. Music is alright, there wasn't a whole lot of though put behind it, but it works. As for the voices, I don't know if they got the cast from the movie, but it doesn't matter, voices can't save this game.

 Know what the saddest part about it is? They had 90% of the legwork done. All they had to do was reskin it, seriously, that was ALL they had to do to make an alright game. What, some of the original animations were too outlandish for the game? Didn't stop them from using the same dashes and Smash attacks. I understand that Shin Budokai Another Road has sorta gone up in price, but this, this isn't a good substitute. And even then, the PSP has so many other great fighting games(Darkstalkers 3, Dissidia, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Tekken, Soul Calibur, etc), why settle for this? I paid 4 bucks for game, so I don't really regret it, and technically, at its core, it ain't a terrible game, the Shin Budokai engine is really good, but when compared with the game that spawned it... it falls short in every single way.
 3.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: .... erm.... Dragon Ball...... evolution... yeah...

 I HAVE MY REASONS, OK?

 I swear I'm a dignified human being, which is why I have a perfectly fine, valid and truthful reason as to why I own this game, four of them in fact... The game was four bucks. FOUR. BUCKS. And I had heard that it borrowed its gameplay from the Shin Budokai series, so I said what the hell.

 I played a bit, finished all 'Easy' Missions and fought against Gohan in the Story Mode, and... it's a poor man's, soulless version of Shin Budokai. The gameplay is here, and there's some new Special moves, which is kinda OK, but everything else is gone. The graphics are very... inconsistent, models are passable, but some animations are really, really bad, like Bulma and Yamcha's walk cycles, they are just... eugh. Then there's also the fact that these characters are very... 'real' looking, with very common clothes, and they are pulling off these off-the-wall attacks(Seriously, Yamcha has a drill-like weapon), it just looks... weird. The music is ... alright, I expected way worse.

 The only reason I started this one was to help me get through the dullness of Crimson Gem Saga, I will finish that damned game and then shelve it... never to be touched again. Probably the worst game I've played this year, not even the 3-4 month break I took was enough to aid me with the grindfest.

 Right now, I can say that even, even if Shin Budokai is outside your price range, this game isn't worth it. As good as the gameplay is, if you want a Dragon Ball game this is a poor substitute, and the PSP has so many other great fighters that blow it completely out of the water. However, at four bucks, if you know what you are getting into, is an alright purchase.... so far, I think.