Month Overview: February

 Games finished in February 2015:
Retro Game Challenge                                                     8.5
Megaman X Command Mission                                      8.0
Half Minute Hero                                                             9.5
The Sims                                                                          5.0
Half-Life                                                                          8.5
Power Rangers Super Legends - 15th Anniversary         5.5
Gods Eater Burst                                                              8.5
Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII                                        4.0
Einhander                                                                         8.0


 Overall strong month, with only Crisis Core to blemish it. Man, was Crisis Core bad, I was so surprised to find out that it was written by the same guy that wrote Final Fantasy VII... The story did so many miss steps, remember how Sephiroth was supposed to be an anomaly in how strong he was? Memory Cloud was level 6-7 while Sephiroth was on the late 60s, if I remember correctly, to show you the wide difference between Sephiroth and the rest of the First Class SOLDIERs... except that now Sephiroth had to equals, in Angeal and Genesis... and eventually Zack too. Hilariously enough, Zack can't do half the amazing stuff Genesis, Angeal and Sephiroth pull, yet we are to believe that he is just as strong... And when Zack got promoted he wasn't even half as good as Sephiroth, while even have all these people on the same class? It made sense before, since it was only Seph, but if you've such power houses, it might be time for a new Rank or something.... or how about the fact that they felt the need to reboot the SOLDIER first class and Turks costumes to black, for whatever reason,  or even the randomness of the gameplay.... Man, Crisis Core just makes me angry.


 Game of February 2015:

 Half-Minute Hero, on the other hand, made me very happy. It's an amazing game, with a hilarious premise and a great execution. It's GOTY material no doubt. It's a tad disappointing that the sequel didn't get a physical release outside Japan, guess I'm gonna have to cave in and get it on Steam.

 Runner-up:

 Speaking of great games, Gods Eater Burst. It was so much fun that unless I found myself grinding for rare drops, it was hard to notice just how little meat to the game there was. Few monsters and few environments should've spelt death for the game, but the game was fun enough. At least for the 50+ hours I invested.

Now Playing: Pokemon Omega Ruby

 'Nother Pokemon generation, 'nother Pokemon remake.

 Whoopty do! So Omega Ruby, officially started it. I mean, what is there to say? They removed customization, with sucks since the Ruby's cap is terrible, but now you can run in diagonals, which is all kinds of awesome. I mean, what is there to say? It's Pokemon, it's the same game it's ever been, I like it.

 I guess I could write a bit about my history with Ruby? I bought Ruby pretty much at release, and at the time, I remember hating the new monsters(I still do!), but there were some standouts, like Groudon and Torchic, 'sides, I hadn't seen Generation 4 and how bad they could get, so I don't dislike them as much now a days. Trainer Bases were something I absolutely adored, it was like a enhanced version of your Room in Gold and Silver, however, I would've liked some way of knowing WHERE your Secret Base was, since coming back to the game after some weeks meant I would forget! I also remember being extremely disappointed that there was no Johto after finishing the game, no other game after Gold or Silver would house 16 badges ever again.

 For as much flak as I give Ruby, it's quite probably the Pokemon game I replayed, in its entirety, the most. After I first finished the game, a bazillion years later I would transfer all my 'mons to Pearl, and I gave it two other playthroughs to farm Legendaries and the other two starters to my Platinum game. Eventually, I would replay it again in order to transfer every Ruby 'mon to Heart Gold. At that time my Wi-Fi was being wonky, so I didn't bother farming legendaries, plus, I had everything I needed to fill the dex in Platinum, so my life long dream of completing the Dex had been fulfilled. Kinda. I eventually completed it in Y though!

 Expectations? I dunno. I'm open to the idea of being surprised, but I'm not particularly fond of Hoenn, and the removal of Trainer Customization was, in my eyes, a huge step backwards. But then again, Mega Beedrill is all kinds of badass... Even though my Mega of Choice is, usually, Scizor.

Review #210 - Einhander

 Killer AIs are so 80s.

 Remember the 90s? Remember when Squaresoft would go outsider its comfort zone and create some great titles that weren't RPGs? I remember.  Einhander is a vertical shoot'em up that brings its own unique spin on the genre, and it's pretty dang good.

 Should I bother with the story? Who plays shoot'em ups for the story? There actually is an story to Einhander, it's pretty dark and grim, and even holds some twists if you manage to make it far enough. I didn't care for it, and neither should you, but it's amusing that Square went out of its way to give it such an involved plot. It's not bad, it's actually fairly interesting, but me, personally, didn't care for it. The game can be played on Easy, Normal or Hard, it's a seven stage romp that can be finished in under an hour if you know what you are doing. I'm terrible at these games, so I had a hard time finishing it in Easy, but the game is far from a bullet curtain, if you've the skill, it's probably quite manageable. That said, if you lose a life, you are sent back to a checkpoint, so you can't just force your way through. One thing to keep in mind is that you can't save your progress, so when you start the game, you better commit to it. Initially there's 3 ships, but you can unlock another 2, one by finishing the game on Hard while using less than two continues(Evidently, this is far beyond my skills) and another one by achieving 15 bonuses, which is easy if you know how to attain these bonuses.

 The game offers some very interesting mechanics, and they change a little depending on which ship you pick. The game is named after the Arm your ship possesses, which you can use to punch the enemies behind or below you, or to hold the various weapon pods. There's a wide variety of weapons, some stronger than others, and each weapon can be used in two different positions, above or below you, which you can be changed at will, some just change if they fire below or above your machine gun rounds, but others may shoot behind you, depending on where you equip them, While you can't save the game midway through your run, the game is saved after you win or run out of continues, and every pod that you grabbed gets 'saved', this way you can choose to start with that weapon equipped the next time you play, which also means you are re-equipped with it every time you respawn. These weapons have a secondary function... you can use them as shields. While your ship dies in one shot, if you time it, or reposition yourself so that a bullet hits a pod, it will tank the shot for you! Pods have limited 'endurance', so they aren't such a commodity.

Every ship comes outfitted with a standard machine gun, the only weapon that houses unlimited ammo, but they use the pods in different ways. One Ship has an enhanced Machine Gun, but can only wield one weapon at a time. Another one allows you to use two pods at a time, but having two pods means that you can't use the machine gun, so you will have to consume ammo, plus, depending on the pods, you may get one of those that shoots behind you if equipped in a certain position, so double fire may be an impossibility. The third one can only equip one pod at a time, but allows you to store up to three different pods. As for the unlockable ships, one can't equip pods(But has a waaay better normal gun) and the other one is an enhanced version of the third ship, that can store almost infinite ammo of each pod(You have to collect the ammo though!).

 As far as looks go... it's alright, I guess. Bullets are clearly defined, and I didn't have trouble spotting them, most of the time, if I got shot down, either I knew why or I got distracted. Something I liked is how the game becomes clearer as you go along, at the start you are in a city, at night, but by stage 4 it's already morning and you are raiding a base! The music is incredible, it's really, really good, it gets you pumped for what's coming, I don't think there was a single track I disliked

 I'm not fond of shoot'em ups, and I'm not good at them, but I liked this one, and I kept coming back to it until I eventually finished it(On easy) which speaks volumes of the game's quality. The entry barrier is a bit higher than other shoot'em ups, which means I'm not sure if anybody else who isn't fond of the genre will like it though.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Jeanne D'Arc

 'Tis pretty dope.

 It probably wasn't the brightest idea to begin a new game when the month is almost over. It's also, probably, a bit too early buuut, these are supposed to be my very early impressions(Since I like seeing how, if, my appreciation for a game changes between how I first felt when I played and how I do after finishing).

 ANYWAYS, I'm liking it. The game is gorgeous, beautiful animated cut-scenes and very detailed and good looking in-game 3D models. The gameplay is simple, but I think I'm gonna like this 'Transform' ability on Jeanne, she gets extra turns whenever she slays an enemy! I wonder if I can exploit it by killing allies.... 'Tis good, I like Jeanne as a lead.

Review #209: Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII

 Oh, boy...

 Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time, there's not a single thing I hate about it. Well, there wasn't, until "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" was announced. I loved Final Fantasy VII, imagine me completely elated by the news! Oh, I was younger back then, I didn't know just how badly they would try to milk the game that functioned perfectly as a stand alone story. They would devalue the character development Cloud went through with Advent Children, as well as managing to shoe-horn appearances by Zack and Aerith, not to mention devalue Sephiroth as a villain by bringing him back, just because. Or how about having the TURKS fight a mysterious previous instance of AVALANCE in Before Crisis? No, I am not a fan of everything that happened after Final Fantasy VII, the Final Fantasy games work as stand alone games, the moment they try expanding upon it, be it The After Years, X-2 or XIII-2 and XIII-3... well, the original XIII was terrible, so those don't count, they spit on the original game.

 Here's the first problem with Crisis Core: There's no story to tell. Really, Final Fantasy VII told you everything you needed, or wanted, to know about Sephiroth, about Zack and his relationship with Aerith and Cloud. There was no mysterious events to deepen, nothing that needed fleshing out. There was no story to tell. That means that they had to create a bunch of new characters that are inconsequential, since the main story has been told and this is nothing but filler. We have Genesis, which is Sephiroth but isn't Sephiroth and wears a red coat. The character is insufferable, something bad happens, Genesis is there and quotes LOVELESS(An in-game poem), and you might fight him or not. 90% of his dialogue is made up of LOVELESS quotes. His motivation is as vain as his personality, they probably realized you were gonna hate him, so throughout the entire game you fight his 'copies', so that you can take out your anger on them. Oh, and spoilers, he is forgiven at the end, so that he may save the world one day after Dirge of Cerberus. Because Nomura was a fan of Gackt and had to have him on the game, and of course he had to have a big part on it. They even shoehorn him into events that happened during FFVII's flashbacks. We also have Dr. Hollander, who is Dr. Hojo except he's not. He's a terrible villain, and the game has you chasing after him most of the time. They even tried to make light of it by giving him a 'funny' running animation. Terrible character. Lastly, there's Angeal, the original owner of the Buster Sword and Zack's mentor. This character had a lot of potential, the idea of a mentor was good, he gets some of the best lines in the game, in a game full of great dialogue(Shame the story is so bad!), but it quickly goes down the hole as he 'develops'. His drive is not convincing, and I felt as if they didn't handle the character very well.

 Hilariously enough, they gave the Buster Sword some backstory, and now it's supposed to be Angeal and Zack's legacy. Y'know, the worst weapon that Cloud could equip in FF7? The first Sword you unequipped and were HAPPY to? A weapon weaker than a bat with nails found in the Temple of the Cetra? Yeah, now that Sword that Cloud stops using after a couple of minutes of gameplay is supposed to be a big deal. Hilarious. Now then, my problem isn't with it being a legacy weapon, it works for Zach's story arc and development, my problem is with the ridiculous backstory behind its creation and how it costed Angeal's father's life. They also tried so hard to be Final Fantasy VII, they recreated some scenes, which is terrible. Having old moments remade with this engine, that's good, but recreating scenes but with Zack on Cloud's place is terrible, now we are to believe that Aerith and Zack met in the same way she did with Cloud, with almost the exact same dialogue. Or how they redid FF7's opening but with Zack coming out of the train, but giving it the flimsy excuse of it being a simulation. That's bad. Pandering for the sake of pandering is bad. The story is oddly paced as well, one of the worst chapters having you go from place to place talking with different NPCs, while the main 'narrative' unfolds via the Mails that you get. It's not a good story, and it's badly told. That said, it does have some good moments, like the way Cloud and Zack met, which was handled pretty well, seeing a nice Sephiroth was also interesting, and while the story is so bad... the dialogue is really good. I also really liked Zack, he is so cheery and happy, unlike sassy Cloud. The Ending was excellent as well, it's a shame you have to trudge through the rest of the game to get to it.

 As for the gameplay, where to start with... In the game you play as Zack, d'oh, with the camera centered on his back, though you can rotate it with the shoulder buttons. The game has random encounters, kinda. The places where Random Encounters can take place are scripted, so walking on them will trigger the encounters(It's usually round, wide areas), but you can skip some by walking on the sides of the area, that said, if you are unlucky to finish a battle close to said sides, you might accidentally trigger the same encounter just a few steps after the fact. It's not the best of approaches, but it could've been worse. The game is pretty linear, sometimes you are allowed to walk around through Midgar and unlock Optional Missions or do some side activities, but every time you get shipped outside Midgar, there's little in the way of exploration. Now then, these optional missions can be accepted at any time provided you are standing over a Save Point. These missions are.. dull. There's over 200 missions, and all of the same are the same, you get thrown on some dungeon, need to find a certain monster and kill it. Doing more than 5 of them in a row is a drag. What's worse, it's easy to get frustrated or overleveled, since the way these unlock is terrible. For some reason, you can do some high-level missions at the START of the game, yet by advancing through the game, or talking to NPC's later down the road, you may unlock Easy missions. Why? Why not tie the difficulty of the missions that you unlock to the time and place you are at in the game? I, foolishly, thought to finish all missions, and spent three hours doing missions at the beginning of the game. Needless to say, that left me overleveled for the rest of the game. And the only reason I stopped was because enemies had unavoidable(At the time) Death spells that prevented me from going onwards. It makes no sense to let you attempt these nigh impossible odds so early in the game, but unlock trivial missions, with pitiful rewards(Since you'll be more leveled) later in the game.

 You can equip up to six Materia on Zack, the objects that allow you to use spells, skills or passive power ups, as well as up to four different equipment pieces. Battles play out in real time, you can move Zack around, and select from your Attack, Spells, Skills or Item with the shoulder buttons. It's a bit impractical when moving around through your different possibilities, but you can at least pick the order in which your Materia appears, so that you can have your most commonly used spells closer to Attack(the default option). You can also use Square to try to dodge, or Triangle to block. The combat is... alright, but it can get dull after a while. Zack picks the target nearest to him, and you can't switch between targets, which wasn't much of an issue, maybe because I was overleveled for most of the game, but still annoying. Speaking of annoying, certain large enemies and bosses have unavoidable attacks. Really, they will trigger a cut-scene, there's no build up for you to try to cancel it, and do damage to you, with no chance to avoid or mitigate it. What the hell? I never lost to a boss due to this, but it's certainly possible, what a terrible, terrible design choice. But that's not even the biggest issue with the game...

 That being the randomness of the game. Level ups? Random. Limit Breaks? Random. Leveling up your Materia? Random. Summons? Random. You read that right, all of those are random. During battle, instead of experience points you earn SP, which is used to keep the 3 reels on the upper part of the screen spinning. Depending on the numbers you get, you will get different buffs, like temporal invincibility, or temporal infinite MP. The reels are made up of characters(Like Cloud and Sephiroth) and numbers, if the two characters on the left and ride reel turn up the same(Say, Cloud-Still Spinning-Cloud) you will enter 'Limit Verge', which PAUSES THE GAME in order to give you a close up of the reels. No, you cannot 'cancel' Limit Verge. Now, if the center reel ends on the same characters as the reels on the side, you will execute a Limit Break. Plus, if on Limit verge you get three sevens Zack will level up, while getting two of the same number will level up the Materia on that slot. Yes, it's very possible not to get a single level up on one of your Materia through the entire game. What where they thinking? I heard that there was an invisible XP counter that made it likelier for a level up to happen, but that's a lie. I spent about 30 minutes fighting and finally got a level up... and then got another level up on the very next random encounter. Leveling up is entirely random. It's a terrible game mechanics that sucks the fun out of fighting. Innovation for the sake of Innovation is not a good thing, get that through your thick skulls, Squeenix.

 If there's one front in which Squeenix never disappoints, it's graphics. The game looks gorgeous, the in-game graphics are nothing short of amazing, while the FMV cut-scenes are breathtaking to say the least. Plus, the game employs a lot of familiar enemies and bosses from Final Fantasy VII, seeing them with such a high polygon count made me feel all happy inside. And made me wish for a FFVII remake with these kind of graphics. Who needs HD, just make it look good. The soundtrack borrows a lot of music from FFVII, which is awesome, while the new tunes are a bit more of a mixed bag. I noticed that most of the least notable original tunes are used in the first part of the game, while most of the new music used in the latter half of the game was fantastic. The music used against Sephiroth being particularly good, heck, most of the 'melancholic' and 'depressing' songs were phenomenal. Voice Acting was incredibly good as well.

 Crisis Core is not a good game. It might be a bit better if you haven't played Final Fantasy VII yet, so that the recycled scenes don't feel like a poor attempt to leech of Final Fantasy VII's nostalgia and the new characters don't feel as inconsequential as they do, plus, you can't really compare these rip-offs, Genesis and Hollander, to the originals! Still, even if the story wasn't as bad as it is, the game just can't pull its own weight. The reels were a terrible idea, the optional missions are dull and poorly spread throughout the game and the battles aren't very fun. If you like Final Fantasy VII, stay away.
 4.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII

 Why can't Square do ANYTHING like normal people?

 Oh boy, here we go. There's two thing y'need to know about me, A) Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time and B) I hate Modern Square-Enix. My feelings about the half hour I spent on Crisis Core so far are mixed at best.

 I guess I'll start with the very first thing you see in the game, the CG cut-scenes. They are amazing, Square's forte has always been graphics, and this is no exception. CG cut-scenes? Gorgeous. In-game models? Amazing. The environments are a bit blander though. Now, as for the intro itself... was it really necessary to redo Final Fantasy VII's opening? It pulled at my heart strings, yes, but... why? If you wanted to show parallels between Zack and Cloud, they could've done it by using a different train on a different area. Oh, but they have an excuse, a flimsy one at that... it's a simulation!

 And they screwed it up. Firstly, they try to trick the audience, with Zack asking why are they fighting Shinra Soldiers, and Angeal replies that they are disguised Wu-Tai soldiers. That's dumb, it's a simulation, who cares? You could argue, and it's a stretch, that Zack was trying to be funny "Yo, why are friendlies my enemies?" and Angeal was being sarcastic. But it's a stretch. And why would you simulate fights against your OWN forces? What the hell? Shouldn't the simulated enemies be, well, you know, your REAL enemies? And the 'last boss' is a Sephiroth simulation. What? And why doesn't Angeal need a visor to see/enter into the Simulation? Heck, why does Zack need it? Also, how come a Simulation broke Zack's sword? Let's entertain the notion that it can somehow create matter.... then why would Zack need the visor? This is the type of nonsense present day Square-Enix is known for, seems to be written by the same guy who did Final Fantasy XIII. No bueno. That said, I like Zack's cheery personality being so opposed to Cloud's no-nonsense demeanor. And no, Cloud was never Emo, he was a bit sassy as a matter of fact.

 As for the gameplay... I dunno, I like it, but I don't. For instance, what enemy Zack attacks is almost completely random, it says that Zack targets the nearest enemy, but I'm pretty sure many a times he didn't target the one closest to him... which meant he incurred damage when I sent him to attack. Attacking feels very... automatic. You can dodge at any time, which is cool, but why bother letting you move around if pressing X will have Zack break into a dash towards the enemy and attack? I dunno, I feel like I'm barely in control. And what's up with Leveling up being Random? Leveling up both Zack and his materia is random. I researched a bit, since even Square couldn't be so backwards when it came to game design, and it kinda isn't, but it kinda is. There's an invisible experience meter that makes it more likely for the reels to stop on 777 and you earn a level up. But still, it's a bit random. Getting Limit Breaks is also random. Why... why would you build a game around random mechanics? Why?

 All in all... now that I put my thoughts on paper, or data, I can tell I'm not really enjoying it. Godammit, Square, what happened to ya?

Review #208: Gods Eater Burst

 Gods are yummy.

 Monster Hunter is kind of a big deal in Japan. Namco wanted a piece of Capcom's pie, so they decided to develop their own take on the idea. The result is Gods Eater Burst, which is Monster Hunter if Monster Hunter ever went anime. As a matter of fact, Gods Eater Burst is the localized version of God Eater as well as the God Eater Burst append/re-release.

 The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future where a new race of creatures, the Aragami, have infested the Earth and mankind fights for survival. Humans wield God Arcs, weapons capable of hurting these beasts, since the wielders must get injected with Aragami Cells in order to use them, but must also keep a bracelet with the Bias Factor in order to keep them in check. Now then, the setting, the world of Gods Eater Burst, I totally adored, I loved the concept behind Gods Eater Burst, although the story is pretty weak. You play as a 'New-Type', a God Eater that can freely switch his God Arc from Sword Form to Gun Form, and happens to be a mostly mute hero, it's kinda weird how they decided to give him or her only a couple of lines, either make him mute all the way, or give him more lines! This is a problem, because midway through the game, your character takes the backseat, and the supporting NPCs become the main driving force behind the story, with your character just.. being there along for the ride. The plot is weak in just how unoriginal everything is, you'll see the plot twists coming from miles away, and every character is pretty damn cliched. Firstly, the art-direction is disappointingly pandering, the females wear almost no clothes, and definitely no underwear, something that the game will let you know, each of the three major female NPCs cover the underboob, cleavage and side boob clothes, because Japan. They look terrible

 It's not just a terrible art-direction, the character themselves follow archetypes that you've already seen countless times. See Soma? The loner? He's like that because he is tired of seeing friends die, so he doesn't want to get close to others, like 200 other Japanese characters before him. And what about Alisa? She's Asuka Langhley through and through, the New-Type that comes from another branch and has some mental issues. The dialogue can get pretty cheesy as well, I couldn't help but roll my eyes every single time the 'big bad' opened his mouth. The game is divided through difficulty tiers, each tier having up to 25 different missions, but only 4-8 of them are mandatory to advance the storyline. After finishing the 6th tier, you'll see the credits, and then you'll be able to go up to the 10th tier, these four tiers being the Burst Storyline. Burst is better written, but it goes full anime. It's not a very interesting story, but it's better written than the main scenario... but it's much more ridiculous. At least your character has a bigger part on this plot! I appreciate the game having a Story, but it's definitely not something to be looking forwards to.

 The game plays basically like Monster Hunter. First of all, you create your character, which can be a male or a female hero, but you get a very few clothing options. Don't worry, you'll be able to craft more. However, I felt the color variety on each piece was very lacking, there's a lot of red, black and white, with not nearly enough Yellow, Orange or Purle, to name a few. Also, a lot of the clothes are very... flamboyant, your characters don't look like people that are about to slay giant monsters. And it's a bit jarring, having these very anime and colorful characters fight these huge, dark, badass monsters. Well, most of them, this being a Japanese game, of course that there are some enemies with female torsos and bouncing breasts. Because Japan. That said, your main hub is the Den, it's here that you can chat with NPCs, buy supplies or craft them, alongside equipment, and pick your missions. As mentioned before, missions are divided through tiers, there's 10 different tiers, plus the post-game Challenge Missions, which total to over 250 missions(only 75 are mandatory to finish the game). Even more if you download the free DLC. And the Japanese version gets even MORE DLC, but because of 'reasons', Namco didn't localize them. Shame, as they added new monsters and equipment.

 While there's a lot of missions, there's not a whole lot of variety. There's only 6 different areas, each one is about as large as two of Monster Hunter's 'sub-areas', however, there's no loading times when moving around, which in my book is a plus, but you'll be seeing the same areas over and over again. There's also only 9 'big monsters' and 3 weaklings. However, each monster gets at least one variation, and they come in 'Fallen' or 'God' variations. Fallen Variations only change the color of the monster, while God variations have slight changes to the 3D model. That said, they each monster and all of its variations behave the same. They may have slightly different attack, for example, the Chi-You and its god variations(Hera and Sekhmet) have the same 'Burst' attack, but the Gods' cover a different area. The Vajra and his two variations are the only monsters with different attacks, but it's mostly in how they work, as they reuse the same animations. Also, the other thing that changes with the variations are the resistances and weaknesses, as well as their weakspots, but otherwise, they are the same monster, but with a different color. Burst adds more 'Variations' to the strong monsters(Arda Nova and Ouroboros), and a new monster, the Hannibal, while the DLC adds Venus, and entirely new monster, and Caligula(A Hannibal variation).

 Now then, from difficulty 1 to 6, while you are fighting the same monsters, they will get stronger, damage and resistance-wise, more aggressive, and they will also gain new attacks as you go up the tiers, so it does feel different when you go up against them again. Burst is a bit.... dull in this regard, monsters don't gain any new attacks, they just get stronger and become damage sponges. It's artificial difficulty really, you are fighting the same exact monsters, except that they can one or two shot you now. To be honest, by the end game I just stopped switching weapons before each fight, or using healing items, since the game wasn't hard, for reasons I will talk about later, it just wanted to eat up my time with damage sponges. And you can argue that Monster Hunter monsters are damage sponges as well, but challenge is a big part of Monster Hunter, this game is not hard.

 If I were to describe the game, I'd call it an easy Monster Hunter. For instance, you can take up to three NPCs alongside you. These NPCs are pretty good at dodging(interrupting your combos with projectiles) and can revive you indefinitely. Kinda. Y'see, when you 'die', the NPCs have 30 seconds to get to your body and give you half their health bar. They've got almost limitless healing supplies, so you can just keep dying and dying, and they will revive you. In over 50 hours of gameplay, they only failed to revive me in time twice, and even then, you get two respawns(Which consume part of the hunt's reward). This is why, eventually, I just stopped buying healing items, and took bigger risks, since the CPU were so reliable in keeping me alive! This can create bad habits, since you don't get such leniency upon death! What's more, enemies in Monster Hunter will go after you if you try to heal without waiting for an opening, not so here, you can just heal in front of their faces. Scavenging for items on the environment doesn't require nets or pickaxes, you just press circle over the shiny spots on the ground. Furthermore, you have a lot of mobility in this game, compared to Monster Hunter, sidesteps are fast, you can jump around and run much faster, all which consume Stamina, but it recovers fairly quickly. You can also use your God Arc to take a bite out of an Aragami, which puts you in Burst Mode for a while, granting better mobility(Double jumping!), and faster stamina recovery, alongside special Bullets.

 Equipment in Gods Eater comes in threes. Your God Arc is made up of three parts: Sword, Shield and Gun, each of these also come in three varieties. Just as with Monster Hunter, weapons have upgrade trees, and you upgrade your equipment with money and items savaged from your prey. The game has a very neat 'exchange' store, where you can trade some materials for others, which can lessen the pain of grinding, when it comes to getting the material you need for your next upgrade. There's many types of damage to take into account: Crush, Sunder, Pierce, Blaze, Freeze, Thunder and Divine, naturally, enemies have different resistances and weaknesses, plus, they may be weak to certain damage source on only some of their limbs. Monsters also deal damage from these sources, and you have three slots of optional equipment to raise your resistances... or other buffs(Or debuffs!) if you prefer. I only cared about these at the start of the game, as soon as I realized just how reliable my team were(About midway through difficulty 7) I stopped caring and stuck to my Wild Yang sword and my Health items. It's an easy game, there's no need to concern yourself with these stats.

 The biggest issue this game has are the controls. As far as melee combat is concerned, the controls are great. The camera can be a bit of a handful, but you can use the digital pad to maneuver it or just tap the L button to position it behind you. You can also use the L button to lock the Camera on an enemy, and most of the time it works well, but sometimes it will choose a terrible angle to get locked at, still, just tap L to 'unlock' it, move it around with the digital pad, and lock onto an enemy again. Using items in the heat of battle can be a bit finicky at times as well, but you'll get used to it after a while. I mentioned that your character is a New-type, and can switch between Sword and Gun Mode at will. Well... the Gun is very unwieldy. You can't lock onto an enemy with the gun, instead holding the L button will put you in 'aiming mode', where you use the digital pad to move the reticule around. Yes, move with the analog pad while aiming with the digital pad, both which are on the same side of the PSP layout. It works terribly. When I used the gun, which is suggested as some Aragami are better dealt with by using the bullets you steal from them, I relied mostly on jumping and shooting, preying I would hit. I did. Most of the time. There's also a fairly in-depth bullet creation mode, and if you use guns mostly, you may get a kick out of it. I just searched for some good combinations online and called it a day.

 It sounds as if I'm mostly being critical, but the game is a blast. I like the fact that it's a more accessible Monster Hunter. I love how much mobility it allows you, in order to move around and dodge attacks, things like stopping a mid air combo with an air block to block an incoming attack, for example. It feels good, and gives it a fairly different flavor to the more methodical MH. Most of the monsters look very cool, and it's fun to fight them. Upgrading your weapons is always fun and rewarding, and trust me, there's a lot of weapons. And the controls? Easily remedied with a console port... which God Eater 2 got!

 While I disliked the art direction on the human characters, the graphics, on a technical level, are phenomenal. Character's hands look a bit... pointy, but otherwise are really good. And the best part? Even when fighting three giant monsters, with three other NPCs... the framerate remains steady. It's amazing. And the environments, while few, look great as well, further selling the idea of a post apocalyptic earth. Graphics get straight As all the way through. Music is very... Japanesy, there's a lot of songs with lyrics, and they fit the game very well, while I'm not gonna be humming the songs any time soon, I don't think there was a single track I disliked. Voice acting is really good as well, the Japanese names are pronounced a bit... off, but no biggie. That said, good voice acting can't save a bad script, heh!

 Gods Eater Burst might be a shameless rip off, but it's a quality rip off. If you like Monster Hunter for the challenge... nope, skip this one, but if you like the franchise for, well, the gameplay, Gods Eater Burst gets the highest of recommendations.
 8.5 out of 10.