Review #180: Project X Zone

 Thank you based Namco. I think...

 Oh, Project X Zone, how I had longed for thee. There were so many fan favorite characters from Capcom, Namco and... some from Sega(Really, they could've made better picks. Shinobi(Joe/Hotsuma/Hibana/Jiro)? Kiryu? Sonic?), all joint together in one game. It seemed like a dream come true. Seemed.  Project X Zone is a game I'm glad we got, but I doubt it's the game many of us wanted....

 Project X Zone is an Strategy RPG in which you battle. And only do battle. Quite literally, it's the only thing you do in the game, have a battle, go to the preparation menu, engage in another battle, rinse and repeat. There's a story that ties everything together, but it's really, really stupid. Firstly, it focuses on Monolith's original characters, which are terrible. The three males are disgustingly overdone, and the three females were made just for fanservice sake, I don't care about these cardboard characters, so stop shoving them to the forefront. There's also the fact that you'll battle the same 15-20 bosses throughout the entire game, and every time you defeat them "Gee whiz, look at the time, got to go". "I bought them enough time.", "Everything is going according to plan, gotta go" and the such. The story is terrible, it has a misguided focus on the original characters that nobody bought the game for and the villains are as corny, cliched and stupid as the get. All we needed was so dumb thread connecting the characters we know and love, if the story is so dumb, you don't need to bring it up on every friggin' chapter.

 As previously mentioned, there's nothing in the game to do but battling. The game also flows in a strictly linear fashion, you can't replay older stages or train for levels or items, which I guess means you could potentially get yourself in a unwinnable scenario with no items, even though the game is pretty generous with them. The game has 41 stages or 'chapters', and each chapter is a battle. Initially battles are pretty short, but after stage 12, every chapter will last between an hour and half an hour. You are allowed one Interim Save in case you really need to go, or want to abuse the RNG. At the start, I liked stages being swarming with enemies and lasting so long, but the game is very repetitive and gets pretty boring after a while, making these hour-long chapters very unwelcome. Speaking of enemies, you always have control of up to 21 units(Some chapters will separate the party) and will face up to 90 enemies, sometimes in waves. As tedious as it is, I admit at first it feels pretty... epic, huge battles against huge numbers. Regardless of the daunting numbers, the game is pretty easy overall, bosses will attack and counter with attacks that will take about 2/3 of your life bar, but you get many opportunities to heal, and healing items are plentiful, so it evens out.

 The game's Combat system is both its best feature and its worst. Characters are divided into Solo and Pair units. Pair units are the ones that do the brunt of the damage, and you can pair them up with Solo Units, that you call upon with the L button to perform an attack during your turn. Pair units have 4 attacks, a Super Attack, can call a support Solo Unit and call a Support Attack from nearby friendly units, if available. There's also 'Skills' that you can use on the field, which include healing and buffing, which consume 'XP', a gauge shared between all units that is filled by dealing and receiving damage. All four normal attacks are performed with A+Directional Input, attacks are flashy and look amazing, as both units attack in tandem, using very familiar moves if you are invested in the unit's franchise. The objective is to keep an enemy unit juggled with your attacks, if they touch the ground you will lose your combo, which means losing the Experience bonus, and later in the game, even normal enemies will have "shield" gauges, which restore upon touching the ground and allows them to nullify some of your hits. It sounds awesome, and it sounds fun, but... imagine doing more or less the same combos to over 60 enemy units per battle, and animations are lengthy, particularly the once-impressive Special Moves, as fun as the combat is at the start, the battles just get tedious. After chapter 30, even most Normal enemies will be able to take more than a full round of your attacks unless you use an unskippable Special Move.

 And that's the game's problem, by chapter 20 you will have seen everything the game has to offer, except the last boss. Quite literally, the bosses you fight at the start of the game are the same bosses you will face up to Chapter 41. They will use the same attacks even. And you'll be doing the same combos over and over and over again. One thing I didn't like is that every now and then the party will split, which I don't really mind, but so will the Solo Units. Sometimes finding a Solo Unit that has good synergy with a Pair unit isn't easy, and it isn't nice when that gets shuffled around and then you have to remember how you had them paired, for when the party reunites. On the bright side, the game is very lengthy, I clocked over 46 hours, so you'll definitely get your money's worth. The most advisable thing to do is not to more than one or two chapters per day(that's 2-3 hours of gameplay!), spread your time with the game to try to avoid letting repetition sinking in.

 The game looks fantastic, sprites are detailed, and the animation is very smooth. One thing that bothered me is how much fanservice they put in the game. Whenever you use Special Moves, you get close ups of the characters, and while the guys end up looking badass, most females have the camera sliding through their thighs, or focusing on their bouncing breasts. There's also lots of lines focusing on fan service. It's funny, because most of these games aren't known for fanservice, which makes you wonder just who the intended audience for this game was? The music is phenomenal, having remixes of  well known music from throughout the involved franchises, very cool. Voice acting is pretty decent, Japanese only, and while I'm not sure if every role is reprised by the original voice actor, the franchises I'm familiar had them.

 At the end of the day, I am glad that we got the game, it sets a precedent for crossovers like these, it allows Namco(and other companies) to test the waters. However, as much as I like getting the game, it is not a very good game. It's passable, it's fun in small bursts, but it's so misguided in focused, so limited in approach and while the combat is fun, at first, it can't carry a 40+ hour game by itself.
 4.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Pursuit Force - Extreme Justice

 Both good things and bad things to say about it.

 I loved Pursuit Force 1, it seemed like a game made just for me, which is why I got so excited and before I knew I had opened Pursuit Force 2. Right off the bat, there's things that I like and things that I don't, first, the ones that I don't(Since I'd much rather end on a positive note):

1) The game is much more story-driven than before, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Also, while the first game let you pick from the available missions, now you are forced to progress through the story. This isn't so bad, since you can just pick any stage on Challenge and Bounty Modes.

2) Why do Challenge and Bounty Mode exist? No, really, Challenge Mode unlocks nothing and why can't you earn stars on your first run through a mission? These modes feel like an artificial way to lengthen the game, no bueno, specially since it seems there's only 26 missions to the first game's 30.

3) Multiplayer Mode. Can't be played with CPUs, which means I can't try it. What's my issue with it? They probably took resources they could've invested in the Single Player mode on this mode.

4) Speedboats don't handle as well as they did in the first game.

As for the good things:

1) You can now pick your upgrades, which you buy with money you earn from the levels, very nice.

2) Cars feel much better, I think the game moves faster?

3) It looks prettier, I think on a technical level, it's the same game, but the environments I've gone through were much more appealing.

4) You can hoard weapons and switch between them, very nice.

 But the best part? Despite all my gripes, I still love the game, the core gameplay remains intact, in fact it feels better, and I'm sure I'm gonna get used to the speedboats segments. And while Challenge and Bounty Modes feel so tacky, I'm sure I'll get more mileage outta them than the races in the first game

Review #179: Pursuit Force

 I finally found the game I've been looking for all my life!

 You've probably seen high-octane action flicks with scenes in which the hero would engage in firefights while driving at high speeds, and then jumping from his car onto a moving a truck. You probably thought it was awesome. Pursuit Force is a game that allows you to partake in action scenes like that, taking the lead in action packed chases throughout the city. This game is awesome.

 The story and characters are all kinds of silly, and it's so much better thanks to it. There's 5 different gangs that have been reigning terror on the streets, so the Government created a new police division, the Pursuit Force, a lethal squad of cops trained chase villains through populated streets. They also have a license to kill. The story never takes the center place in the game, and that's just fine, you don't need the context, but the five gangs are... they seem lifted from cheap action movies, there's the obligatory Mafia, the obligatory Yakuza, the obligatory all-female jewel-obsessed group, a mercenary group and a group of escaped convicts, a colorful cast. Each group has a couple of big wigs that are equally colorful and hilariously over the top. Even the Chief of the Pursuit Force has his moments, "If you die I can't fire you!". The story component of the game wasn't really needed, but it adds to the games flavor, it's rather charming and memorable due to how ridiculously over the top it is. And hey, you can just ignore it if you don't fancy it, you can skip the very few and brief cutscenes, or the mission overviews.

 There's three modes in the game: Career, Race and Time Trial. Race and Time Trials are basically races throughout the game's 30 stages, in Race you race against other gangs and in Time Trials against your best times. As I've mentioned over and over again in this blog, I don't like racing games, so I didn't really care about these two modes, and they don't unlock anything, but at least it gives you some extra stuff to do, and there's a fair amount of unlockable cars, speedboats and bikes. Career Mode is where the real meat of the game lies, there's 30 missions spread throughout the five different gangs(6 missions each) and you can do them more or less at your leisure, but you unlock them in 'sets'. After clearing each set of Missions you rank up and gain upgrades... but these don't carry over to older missions, which is rather disappointing. Clearing Missions with an A rank will unlock Vehicles for the other two modes and Cheats, both positive(Like invulnerability) and negative(Poisoned!), but these disable progress and ranks, which I think is fair enough, it allows you to have fun with them, without allowing you to cheese your way through the game.

 The way the game works is phenomenal, this is an Arcade game through and through, so don't expect a whole lot of depth, but you can get to the "good parts" every time you turn on the console. There's three different "segments", Driving, On-Foot and Helicopter, each mission having any combination of these, but Driving stages are in almost every mission. Driving segments are easily the best, the game is incredibly fast, and I like the way vehicles handle, however, the colliding with other cars feel kinda off, not a deal breaker. Pressing the L button produces an aiming reticule over en enemy vehicle, if there are more than once, you can cycle through targets by pressing it again, and R allows you to shoot, simple and easy. When you are not tasked with retrieving a car safely or driving someone somewhere, you can press circle to hijack enemy vehicles or civilian cars. Heck, some levels have you jumping onto trucks or speedboats! Amazing stuff. Controls work perfectly, and they allow you to do a ton of impressive stuff very easily, which lends itself to its frantic gameplay.

 Helicopter segments are simple turret levels in which you take aim, manually, and shoot a minigun that overheats, simple. On-foot segments are easily the worst, but not unmanageable. The PSP only has a single analog stick, which means the camera turns when you turn. Regardless, these are fairly short and easy, and just as with the vehicle scenes, the L button locks onto an enemy, so you can just strafe and shoot. These scenes were clearly implemented with the PSP's limitations in mind, so they aren't very taxing and they offer variety. There's another mechanic in the Justice Bar, which applies to all segments, destroying, killing or capturing enemies increases your Justice Bar, while crashing onto civilian cars, or accidentally shooting them(Happens when a civilian car gets between your target and your bullets) makes it decrease. A full Justice bar bestows you with double power, which is incredibly useful so you might want to keep it... but then again, you can use it to completely heal yourself and your vehicle or to use bullet time while hijacking an enemy vehicle, allowing you to take out the passengers without getting hit. It's a very fun mechanic, and often puts you in tough spots, should you heal? What if you need the extra fire power? Maybe it's just your car that's getting damaged, so you might not need bullet time to hijack another car and so on.

 There's a nice variety of missions in the game, but they all take place in very linear courses, and each course has a 'goal', which if enemies reaches is game over for you. Objectives include escorting other vehicles, capturing specific enemy vehicles, bringing down helicopters, reaching a certain place before the time runs out, tailing enemies at a certain distance, or killing every enemy before they reach the goal. I never felt the game to be repetitive, and it helps that each Enemy gang has their own vehicles and weapons, so even similar missions feel different between each other. Bosses are also interesting, they are simple, but each boss has their own gimmicks to avoid. The game can get very tough, some stages took me over to 10 retries, but it never feels unfair, and the game is so much fun, I never felt burned out while retrying a stage. Most stages also have checkpoints when you switch between segments, so that helps.

 Pursuit Force is a very beautiful game, character models are rather simple and the animation is a bit poor, but the vehicles and environments are gorgeous. There's a lot of different locales to visit too, snowy cities, urban cities, desserts, countryside, and so on, and it also happens be very colorful. Another thing to keep in mind, is that there's barely any slowdown in the game, and when it happens, it's very hard to notice. The music is very upbeat, and really gets you in the mood for some road mayhem, it really gets you into the game and makes stages even more exciting.

 Pursuit Force is one of the best PSP games I've ever played, and one of my favorite games ever(It probably cracks top 20), it's a game made on the whole premise of being "fun". The only thing that it needed was a little more polishing on the car collisions, and maybe tightening the on-foot segments a bit more, but as a whole, it's a fantastic game.
 9.5 out of 10

Review #178: Gran Turismo

 Oh boy, is my head gonna roll for this...

 Disclaimer: This whole piece was written by someone who does not like racing games, so, y'know, that's the point of view from which I'm gonna tackle the game, because, it kinda is my point of view and there kinda isn't much I can do about that. And I have to write about it because that's the whole purpose of this blog. So... yeah.

 Gran Turismo was THE racing sim of its time, it boasted tons of details, cars, and other mumbo jumbo that car enthusiasts love. Heck, the game comes packaged with a "Reference manual" that explains all kind of techniques and types of cars and how the relate to the game and what not. Most of it is probably outdated though! Regardless, the game has two main modes: Simulation and Arcade. Arcade is where 2 Player mode is, alongside Time Trial and Single Player races against 5 other cars. There's a bunch of unlockables in this mode, but you need to clear each track on every difficulty and with each type of car. Needless to say, for someone like me, it was kind of a chore, but it's nice to have unlockables. There's over 100 cars and 8 tracks to race with and in, not too bad for the first game in the series!

 Simulation Mode is where the meat of the game is, and it's for a single player only. In this game you start off with 10.000 in cash, and you must buy cars, or parts to tweak them with, as you progress through the different cups. This mode is phenomenal, and it's a great idea, but a racing game-challenged person like me had a ton of difficulties clearing the first License and gave up on the second one! Y'see, before being able enter cups you need to earn licenses, and you do so by clearing a set of challenges. The thing is, the game doesn't properly explain you how to do it, just what you have to do. Eventually I just gave up. Regardless of how I felt about it, the premise behind the mode is genius, and I'm sure that people that like this kind of games will love it. Besides the Cups there's Special "events", but these are more challenging since rival cars won't be "scaled" down or up to your vehicle's level, so you might not stand a chance until you buy a better car or better parts.

 As for the gameplay... it's fast, it depends on the car actually, but it's fairly 'rigid' on how you must handle curves and breaking. It makes sense, as the game aims for realism, so if that's your thing, this game is right up your alley. One thing I noticed is that the game seems to employ some sort of rubber band AI, as on the very few occasions I manged to do well, they would catch up to me, and at times after I spun out, I could catch up to them without much trouble.

 There's no denying that the game looks gorgeous. Cars look amazing, for a PS1 game mind you, with tons of detail, and they managed to create some fake "reflections" on the windows that look fairly good and were probably quite impressive back in the day. The one disappointment would be that cars don't get damaged, but I think that had to do with the deals they made to get the car manufacturers in the game. As for the tracks, I felt like it could've used more variety, not in quantity or quality, but in the backdrops, guess I'm just used to more over-the-top racers. I really liked the soundtrack too, it features some licensed music, and it fits the game very well.

 I know that Gran Turismo was, and probably still is, a great game, but it isn't my kind of game. and if you aren't into Simulator Racing Games... yeah, I'd say pass on this one.

 5.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Pursuit Force

 THIS GAME IS AWESOME

 I think I found it... the game I've been looking for my entire life. I've stated it many times already, but my favorite kind of game is, well, the arcade kind. Fast, straight to the point, pick up and play, no fuss, just action. THIS is the epitome of that. Before each mission there's some text blurb about what you have to do, and then you are thrown in the middle of a car chase, and boom, do your thing. HIJACKING ENEMY CARS WHILE ON THE MOVE IS SO AWESOME. Another thing I really like is the Justice Bar, once you fill it you can spend it to heal yourself... or don't, and make the most of your temporary enhanced firepower and the ability to shoot while jumping onto another vehicle. So. Cool. I've been having some issues with the "dodging" mechanic, as there doesn't seem to be a clear tell on when an enemy is going to shoot at you, but I can deal with that, WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE, BOOYAKASHA!

 And the music? It just pumps you up for more road rage mayhem. I love this game.

Review #177: Dragon Ball Z - Tenkaichi Tag Team

 The best Dragon Ball game on a handheld.

 Back when the PSP first launched, it promised PS2-quality games, and it failed to deliver until later in its lifespan. Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi Tag Team was the final installment of the Tenkaichi series and it was made exclusively for the PSP. Not only does it deliver a "PS2 quality experience", it's also one of the best versions of the Tenkaichi games.

 The game offers a respectable amount of modes, Story Mode, which covers the entire series from Raditz's arrival to Buu's confrontation, witch unlockable "what if" scenarios. Story Mode is fairly interesting, as you are placed on an overworld, and you can just go straight to your objective, or travel around in search of sidequests which reward you with Capsules or Money. Whether you tackle the optional objectives or not, it's still a fairly lengthy mode. Then there's the obligatory VS CPU or Player mode, "Battle Selection" which houses Survival and 'vs 100' where you take different battles that task you with different challenges for points, Training and Customization. Customization works just like it did on Budokai Tenkaichi 3, you can equip your fighter with different Potaras to raise its stats, there's even "AI" Potaras to make the CPU fight in a certain way, or Potaras that change the color of your Aura, very cool.

 The game plays just like Budokai Tenkaichi 3 but with a twist... there can now be up to 4 fighters at the same time! Sadly, no free for all, it has to be in teams of up to two(1 vs 2 or 2 vs 2, no 3 vs 1), but it's still very cool. Obviously controls have been tweaked to fit the PSP, and they work very well. Transforming is no done with the Select button, Specials are done with L+Triangle and Stock-consuming Specials with L+Circle and R is used to switch targets. It works well, I didn't have any issues with the controls. Naturally, the character roster saw some cuts, but mostly of the side characters. The only movie characters that made the cut are Brolly(Legendary Super Saiyan only) and Gogeta, everyone else is gone, other cuts include GT charactes(Who needs them?) and Dragon Ball characters. Some minor characters are also gone, like Future Gohan, Oozaru transformations, Frieza's father and Super Buu(Gotenks absorbed, the other two are in.). Basically, everyone that matters in the Dragon Ball story is accounted for. The stage selection was also cut to ten, but it's enough stages.

 Graphics are phenomenal, character models are on par with Budokai Tenkaichi 3's, but they lack some of the details, and they don't move their mouths when they speak. The game also looks less vibrant, Tenkaichi 3 was very colorful, this game opted for a more subdued color palette, which I think doesn't look as good. The particle effects and beams don't look as good, but some of the bigger explosive attacks cause the framerate to drop, so they probably did the best they could. Music is fairly good, it suits the game. As for the voice acting... there's no dual audio, which is disappointing, but not a deal breaker, the English voices get the job done, and they are not as bad as people make it out to be. Plus, the game has a lot of voice acting, there's many voiced dialogues in the Story Mode.

 Tenkaichi Tag Team is an excellent Dragon Ball Z game and a superb handheld game. There's a ton of content that can be played in small bursts, ideal for a game on the go. The gameplay is intact from the PS2 games, and the new 4 player battles are a blast. The one thing that could be held against the game is that the tutorial is only text-based, and not very good, and I guess the controls can be a bit overwhelming for someone new to the franchise, but coming from Tekaichi 3 and Raging Blast, I had no troubles coming to grips with them. Would I recommend the game to someone who isn't a fan of DBZ? It's a toughie, as fun as the game is, I don't think it's worth learning the game to someone who isn't a fan of DBZ or hasn't dabbled into the Tenkaichi series, I can see how learning to play the game could put people off, but then again, I think it's worth the hurdle.
 8.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi Tag Team

 Another day, 'nother DBZ game.

 So, there I was, despairing and studying, I wanted something to play, to take a break. I could continue with Gran Turismo 1, but... I just wasn't feeling it. I could've continued Project X Zone, but that game is getting so boring, and each stage takes like an hour, so it was a no go. I could play my second favorite PSP game, Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus, but I wanted something new. So I picked Tenkaich Tag Team.

 It's awesome. Graphics are comparable to the PS2 version, it lacks some details, and the particles aren't as good, but overall, it's almost as good. Controls are tight, and the gameplay is basically the same... but with two other fighters on the arena. It's awesome. The story mode has some charming SD models, but I'm not feeling the "looseness" of the adaptation. Gohan falling from the Nimbus Cloud at the beginning just so that they could teach you about towns? Having a friendly spar with Krillin? Yeah, no, I'd rather have a more faithful story, but it's no biggie. There's no dual audio, which is kind of a bummer, this is the second time I'm gonna play a Dragon Ball game in English, Budokai 1 being the other, I don't really mind it, but I like the Japanese voices, oh well!

 As it stands, it looks like a great PSP game, and god knows I needed a good PSP game...