Month Overview: March

 Games finished in March 2015:

Pokemon Omega Ruby                                                 7.5

Street Fighter X Tekken(Vita)                                      6.0

Tomba!                                                                          8.5

Tomba! 2 - The Evil Swine Return                               9.0

Injustice - Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition             8.5

Escape Dead Island                                                        5.5

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late                                      9.0

Dragon Ball Xenoverse                                                  3.5

 So, what happened with Jeanne D'Arc? Pokemon Omega Ruby happened. It's funny, because I'm not even having fun anymore, but the collector in me compels me to fill that 'Dex. Goddammit. Xenoverse was pretty disappointing, I knew the last-gen port was gonna be gimped in some way, but the framerate issues really hurt it, specially since it forces you into fights with more than 2 fighters. And then there's the fact that the grind-heavy gameplay isn't very fun, I gave up after three days of grinding for the last Dragon Ball, it's the only DBall game in which I haven't unlocked everything, but between the framerate and the grind... I just got annoyed.

 Game of March:

 UNIE:L is amazing. No, really. I like how it's a completely new IP with a completely new cast of characters, I love how easy it is to get into it. It's not perfect though, it could've used some kind of tutorial, and since it cares so much about story... how about some sort comprehensive story mode or an encyclopedia to cover all the terms it uses? At least, all the things it's missing are somewhat fluff when it comes to a fighter!

 Runner-up:

 Tomba! was pretty flippin' good. Tomba! 2 is flippin' awesome. I mean, the worst thing I can say about it is that it's a tiny bit too much like the first one, but when the first one is so good... 'tis not such a bad thing I tell ya. The Tomba! franchise, while short-lived, is excellent, it's a great blend of Metroidvania with Adventure elements that makes both games quite unique.

Now Playing: Haunting Grounds

 Pretty flippin' good.

 Where to start... I guess from what I didn't like, since it's like.. just one thing? To put things into perspective, I just played 2 hours straight and only stopped myself because wanted to write this and grab a snack, otherwise, the game's got a solid grip on me! It's that good.

 So, what's the one thing I didn't dislike? This is a Japanese game, and as with 90% of Japanese media, there is fanservice. From the very first scenes in the game, they try to show as much of Fiona's skin as they can, with the moving sheets and why not. And no, they weren't trying to showcase her as vulnerable, the camera angles were not needed! And it got worse. She dresses... decently, but her breasts move all over the place over the tiniest of steps. Seriously. It could be somewhat justified since she isn't wearing a bra, but still... more than a couple of times I went from unnerved to laughing due to how ridiculous the jiggle is. Japan, will they ever learn? Probably not.

 But what did I like? Everything else! The music, graphics and camera angles mix together to creep you out, and it's so beautiful. More than once I would stop what I'm doing since I heard footsteps or what not. And while the Dog/Human duo is hardly original(Dead to Rights, and Shinobi to name a few), in this game it works, since both Fiona and Hewie are not badasses and are certainly not very strong, so their cooperation is a bit more endearing, and it's easier to care about them. Puzzles in the game seem rather easy, two hours into the game, I already made it into the Moon Reflector Room and didn't find myself wondering what to do at any moment

 Something I noticed while playing, is that while the moments before the chase are incredibly tense, and while the atmosphere is pretty dang creepy, the chases themselves are more annoying than anything. I'm not scared while running, and I rarely found myself in danger, so it's more annoying than anything having to run and find a place to hide in order to continue doing whatever the hell I was trying to do. Maybe there will deadlier enemies later on? I... I think I hope so!

Review #218: Dragon Ball Xenoverse

 This ain't gonna be pretty.

 First things first, if last gen ports of current gen games are gonna be this terrible, just don't bother. No, really. Xenoverse is a game I've been kinda hyped about ever since it's initial announcement. I watched a lot of videos, and tiny details like characters swimming while under water pumped me up in all kinds of ways. But I was worried, worried because Dimps' last anime game was Saint Seiya Brave Soldier, and worried because it was very ambitious with its 3 vs 3 battles, and feared for the X360 and PS3 ports. The good news, is that they did a couple of things right... the bad news, is that the game suffers from an identity crisis and terrible performance issues on last-gen platforms.

 One thing people usually bring up about Dragon Ball games is that they always cover the same storyline, but I never cared, I like faithful adaptations, and while I don't consider myself a fan of the franchise(Just the games!), I've yet to get tired of replaying the same story over and over again. This game borrows heavily from Dragon Ball's 'expanded' universe, with Mirai Trunks(Ahem, 'Future Trunks') being part of the Time Patrollers. You get to play as your very own created character, you are even allowed to pick gender and  race from Human, Saiyan, Namekian(Male only), 'Frieza's Race'(Male only) or Majin and each one having their own strengths or perks. Regardless, you are the latest addition to the corps, summoned by Shenron, and must help Trunks 'fix' the timeline that a couple of villains are altering by powering up the villains of the series. This means that you get to fight alongside the Z warriors as the Ultimate Gary Stu/Mary Sue, y'know, even a Human is able to keep up with a souped up Majin Buu! One thing that I couldn't help but notice is that your character isn't... they don't acknowledge his presence a lot of times. The game has a ton of gorgeous cutscenes, and the rest of the characters barely even look in your direction, most of the time, although they reference him a bit more in the in-game dialogue, plus, there's some unique lines depending on your race!  I didn't really care about the story, but I'd lie if I didn't crack a smile here and there, and there's a couple, but just a couple, of truly genius moments. All in all, I didn't care for it, but it's far from being bad, and they could've gone with the trite 'evil clones' story(Which Dimps actually used on their Shin Budokai PSP games!), but they didn't! Oh, and by the by, the story does a lot of jumps and what not, so it expects the player to know DBZ's storyline, unless they want to get lost or have things make no sense to them.

 As I mentioned previously, one of my biggest gripes with the game is its Identity crisis, it doesn't know if it wants to be an MMO-like game or an RPG. Instantly you'll notice that there are no menus what so ever, everything is done by picking you created character and walking over to a counter or a NPC. And even then, there's not a whole lot of 'modes', there's the Story Mode(Talking to Trunks), Parallel Quests(Online and Offline), Offline(CPU) and Online Battles(Player), as well as Tournament and VS Player(Local). Here's the thing, there's very little in the way of options. As far as VS CPU goes, you can't change the difficulty setting, and they are slightly challenging, I'd say that they are harder than Story or Parallel Quest CPUs! And even then, and this goes both for Online and Offline VS, you can't change number of rounds(Defaults at 1) or how long the match lasts. What the hell? That's not even the kicker, Local VS Player can only be done 1vs1 and only on the World Tournament Stage. There's a reason for it, it's the smallest stage, so the camera can keep both characters on-screen at the same time, still, it's pretty lame, they could've shrunk  the invisible barriers on the other stages or something. And probably you noticed already, but there's no Training Mode, there's no way to lengthen the duration of a round, and the only way to battle a dummy is by going Local 2Players and pummeling a defenseless second player.

 And I'm not even done with issue like these, how about the fact that the character roster isn't very well balanced? Certain characters are just naturally good done others, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's these 'mob' characters, Saibamen, Frieza's soldiers and Cell Jrs, and they are absolute garbage, any character can easily dispose of them, so why even bother including them in the roster? No, really, I can't even try to figure out combos since the VS CPU can just own me in seconds flat when using these buggers. Y'know, a lot of people took issue with the 47 character roster,  but I think it's just fine, it has all the necessary characters and then some, and being the first entry on a pseudo-fighting game, I think it's forgivable... even if the combat system isn't exactly deep, but more on that later. But even then, I have issues with the character roster outside the quantity... Movesets are defined by costumes. That's right, 'ripped clothes Goku' not only has different stats than 'normal' Goku, but it also has different moves and special moves. It's so shortsighted, and it annoys me even more because the game has some costumes that no other Dragon Ball game has! But picking 'pig-tailed Videl' is just a death sentence because her stats are terrible and her specials are worse. I don't know whose idea was it, but it's aggravating. And I wasn't planning on holding the DLC against it, since it seemed to have been made after the game was made, and they were GT characters.... but DLC pack 2 makes two of the unique villains playable. Enemies that you fight in the game, that obviously have their model and animations done, can only be played by buying the 2nd DLC Pack. Really? I mean, REALLY?

 Not done yet. Character creations offers more than a fair amount of customization options, which I really liked, but it doesn't come with a few short comings. For instance, costumes affect your stats. I've heard that when you reach max level these don't matter all that much, but having to look ridiculous just because you want a melee oriented character is a bit annoying. Costumes and stats should've been kept separate. And among these tonnes of customization items, which are divided in torso, legs, hands and feet,  you can find a lot of 'character costumes'(Say, Goku's Gi), even some from characters that didn't make it into the game, which sounds awesome.... but you can't change the color of these, which is very disappointing. Still, when it comes to character creation, it's mostly a hit, not only can you create some of the missing characters, you can have some pretty hilarious combinations, like a flesh-colored Majin, with a Super Saiyan-hair wig and wearing a Saiyan's costume for kicks and giggles. Basically, I think the Character Creator is great, but it needs some tweaking.

 Nope, not done yet. When not doing the Story Quests, by talking with Trunks, you'll be doing the Parallel Quests. Parallel Quests are sidequests of sorts, like an MMORPG, that you can take at any time, and bring buddies or CPU allies. All of these come with their own set of rewards, and optional objectives to fight powerful bosses. It sounds great, and on paper it is, there's over 50 of them even, but they come with a lot of issues. Where to start.... The RNG(Random Number Generator) which governs what and IF you get a drop(reward) is downright evil, which translates to a lot of replaying. That's one thing, but remember the optional objectives? You can't see what they are until you clear them for the first time, and sometimes, even if you clear them, the 'boss' won't come. Some of the rewards can only be obtained IF you defeat the boss, and even then, it's still a random drop. It translates to a lot and a LOT of retrying and replaying. Finding the Dragon Balls and finding Mentors(NPCs that can teach you some skills) are also random. So, want a particular skill? A costume piece? Get ready to replay the hell out of certain missions until they drop. Fun. And in an ironic, twisted way, it actually works in your favor, since later Parallel Quests get unfairly challenging, so you will need to grind.

 And no, I'm most definitely not done. Most of these quests allow you to bring 2 Player buddies or 2 CPU allies. Lemme warn you right now, if you plan to play offline, be ready for a world of pain. Allied CPUs are stupid, plain and simple, they will watch you get pummeled without trying to aid you, they will push enemies out of your combos, and they will get wrecked by enemy CPUs. And the best part about it? The enemy CPU will help each other, you'd think that in a 3 VS 2, your 2 allies would be able to keep 1 CPU at bay while you defeat the other one, but nope, they will let the other enemy come and interrupt your combo while they just... watch. And that's one of the biggest issues, the game is balanced for 3 players, but CPU allies get wrecked and are downright useless, but you still want to bring them and hope that the other CPUs get diverted by them while you try to pick'em off one on one, one by one. And you are allowed to bring healing items, some which you can even use on the CPU... but there's certain missions that require you to protect a third CPU(Protection/Escort missions, always a pleasure)... and these CPUs are as dumb as your allies, but you can't heal them. Even better, later in the game enemies gain super armor just because, and some escape techniques that can't be avoided if you are mid-combo, and the allied CPU will always be close by, watching or trying to push the enemy out of your combo, so they will eat that attack, an attack that you can't stop them from using. Fun.

 There's more. It seems that the game favors 'beam spam' builds. From what I've heard, hybrid melee-beam characters struggle the most throughout the game, and then melee specialists(My build) will also have a bit of a hard time. And it makes sense that ranged characters would have an easier time seeing how the game plays, but you can't respec your build unless you gather the seven Dragon Balls and wish for it... instead of one of the 3 Dragon Ball-exclusive characters or costume pieces. Still, I've avoided talking about the game's main source of frustration, and it only applies to the PS3/X360 port of the game, the framerate. If at any time there's 4 or more characters on screen, the framerate will dip horribly. Playing on the World Tournament Stage or the Namekian Water Stage is a nightmare, particularly on 3 VS 3. And the thing is, most fights in the game, either Story or Parallel Quest battles, are made up of four fighters or more.  And yes, you could just opt not to bring CPU allies, but you need them as fodder. The worst part about it, is that on the few instances that the framerate didn't drop, like 1 on 1, I had fun with the game. Still, the framerate issue also applies to the MMO overworld. Initially, it runs flawlessly, but even if you never go online, after a certain Mission, it will populate it with NPCs.... and then you'll be running underwater from place to place. The Framerate issues made everything about the game more annoying, I'm sure that if it wasn't so terrible, I could've dealt with a lot of the game's issues, but the framerate affects everything. Grinding means that after each Parallel Quest, whether you won or lost, you have to walk back to the counter, because it couldn't just spawn you back in front of it, all while dealing with slowdown, only to enter the same battle again, which will probably play in slow motion due to the amount of fighters on screen. It's incredibly annoying.

 The fighting is very fun, albeit simple. You have weak attacks(Square), strong attacks(Triangle), Ki blasts(Circles), blocking(L1) and dashing(L2). While floating, you can go up by holding X or go down by... holding L3(Pure genius), but this is the only confusing bit about the controls, luckily, since when the framerate is steady, controls are very responsive. Each character has four special moves, which you can cherry-pick if it's your created character, and you gain access to them by holding R2 and pressing a face button, while L2+R2 allows you to use your Ultimate attacks. X doubles as the 'dodge'/'pursuit' button, press it while under attack to spend 2 stamina bars to teleport behind the enemy, or press it after a combo to pursue them. As I said, it's a very simple game, but it's also fun. Still, it lacks depth, Budokai this is not. Going back to the game not knowing if it was a Fighting game or an MMO, if you play online battles, it's very possible to be paired against a higher level enemy, which is always fun.

 Graphics are gorgeous, kinda, since you have to deal with heavy slowdown! One thing I adored, and wish more games would do, is that it uses a super oversaturated color palette, everything is very colorful and in your face. I love it. The game might also have the best stages in a Dragon Ball game EVER, they are huge, and with a ton of different structures or geometry, and there's a ton of them! However, I did notice that there are some odd... quirks. Like in Parallel Quests, it's not unusual to get short scenes when new fighters arrive, they might even talk some trash... but their mouths won't move. Cutscenes have always been one of Dimps' fortes, and it's no different here. The soundtrack is... Well, let's just say that the opening song is a new rendition of Cha-la Head Cha-la, and it's awesome. That little I heard of the in-game music was also fairly good... when you can hear them over the SFX and dialogue! As per usual, I played with the Japanese dub, and it's as good as always, and while there's the English dub, I really can't comment on it, but general consensus is that it's good.

 For as much as I hated about Xenoverse, I still think that this is an excellent foundation for future Dragon Ball games. Dial back a bit on the MMO elements, allow for more customization when it comes to online and offline battling, separate costumes from stats, ease up on the RNG-related drops and add more depth to the combat, maybe bring back cancels. Oh, and for the love of god, downgrade the graphics on PS3/X360 ports or just don't bother at all, because I'd rather not play at all over playing under water.
 3.5 out of 10.

Review #217: Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late

 Bicycle chair in the water lot: Early.... I think my title is better.

 The title makes no sense, the story makes no sense and the game is as Japanese as it gets... and I haven't had this much fun with a fighting game since Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late, which I'll call UNIEL henceforth, is French-Bread's pseudo successor to Melty Blood, a Dojin Fighting game based on the Tsukihime franchise. Unlike Melty Blood, this is an entirely original ordeal, and as much as it borrows from the former title, it also comes with new gameplay mechanics.

 The story..... The story is a mess. It might make sense, but the game doesn't convey enough information to you, the player, neither in-game nor with the instruction booklet. If you expect to make heads and tails of the story, it's a requirement to look on the net for an explanation of all the terms the game loves to throw around, as if it expects you to know what an 'in-birth' or a 'rebirth' means in the world of UNIEL. I don't play fighting games for their story, although when done right it can be a plus(Look at Mortal Kombat or Injustice, and even Tekken to a lesser degree), so I didn't care to look for what they meant. And even then, the writing is pretty poor, besides lacking any sort of exposition, it also tries to be edgy and throw 'bitch' or sort around. It comes out as forced and needless, and it suffers for it. The setting not withstanding, I love the fact that we get an entirely new cast of characters. This generation had very few new IPS, sure we had Persona 4 Arena or Aquaplus, but those are based on existing franchises, so having a completely new IP is a breath of fresh air. Initially the characters seemed pretty dull, and they kinda are, their motivations and archetypes are disgustingly cliched, with very generic drives and motives of many other characters from Japanese media, but at least they look alright in-game and I grew to really enjoy a few, like Orie and Carmine. Plus, there's little to no fanservice, excepting that one Japanese gamer with too much free time on his hands that decided to slow down various frames of animations from the female fighters, which is incredible of a Japanese game, in a good way. The game offers 16 different characters, with no headswaps or paletteswaps, and two guest characters: Akatsuki from Indie fighting game Akatsuki Blitzkampf and Eltnam(In the form of Eltnum) from Melty Blood. Having Akatsuki in the game is both amusing and great, while Eltnum's storyline is simply hilarious.

 In UNIEL you get: Arcade(Which doubles as Story Mode for each character), VS Player(Offline and Online), VS CPU, Time Attack, Score Attack, Survival and Training, all which are pretty much self explanatory. As with every ArkSys game(Either developed or publish, such as in this case), there's a Gallery Mode, with a few images to unlock by fulfilling certain conditions or buying them with in-game points.,, or you could also spend this in the Customization menu, to customize your Title and Icon, or unlock extra colors for your fighters! Each character starts with 10 colors, and you can unlock another 10. Pretty neat! I only had one tiny little issue with the game... there's no tutorial mode. Granted, it took me about 10 minutes on the Training Mode to get a grasp of the game's system, aided by the instruction booklet, but someone who's a bit less familiar with fighting games might very well be overwhelmed by the many gauges or mechanics employed in the game.

 As for UNIEL's specific mechanics... where to start with? Let's see... There's only four buttons used, A, B and C which stand for Weak, Medium and Strong attack respectively, and D which is used for a couple of secondary functions. Now then, there's three different gauges, the Health bars on top of the screen, and the EXS and GRD gauges below. EXS is basically the energy bar, it goes from 0 to 200, and is increased by dealing or receiving damage. Then there's the GRD gauge which is a bit harder to explain... Doing certain actions, mostly aggressive actions, like dashing towards the enemy or dealing damage, teching throws or blocking(These two are a bit more defensive in nature, kinda) makes it increase, while backdashing or getting hit makes it decrease. In the middle of both GRD gauges(Yours and the enemy's) is a circle that slowly fills, and when it's filled, whoever has the most GRD gets the Vorpal Buff, which grants the wearer a 10% damage boost, but it also lets you use Chain Shift by double tapping D, which either stops whatever your enemy is doing or resets you to neutral if you are mid-combo, effectively acting as a cancel, letting you extend your combo. Doing this transforms all your GRD into EXS and cancels the Vorpal Buff. One thing to keep in mind is that the GRD circle's loop never stops, even after one gets the Vorpal Buff, so if your enemy manages to gain more GRD by the time it fills again, they will gain the buff, so the tide can change at any moment!

 And that's barely scratching the surface of what UNIEL offers. There's a few more mechanics which involve GRD, namely holding D to trade EXS for GRD and pressing B+C performs a character unique move, could be anything from a defensive evasion move or a wall bouncing attack, that consumes one GRD segment. Before moving on to the EXS gauge, there's a few more basic actions left to mention, for instance, mashing Neutral A will perform 'Smart Stear', which is a fancy way of saying Autocombo. I dislike this mechanic a lot, and many fighting games seem to be implementing it, but at least it's a very simple combo that ends in a Super Move if you've the EXS necessary. As with most 2D fighters, every character has motion Special Moves, that vary in strength depending on which button you used, but in this game 'Super' Moves(I'll be using a Hybrid KOF/SF notation system, since it's easier to understand) are not done by using complex motions, no, instead, by using a Special Move with the C button(Strong attack) you'll use the EXS consuming(100), Super version of said Special Move. It gets even simpler, there's also.... 'Ultra' moves, which consume 200 EXS and use an universal half-circle motion+D input for every character. And there's another tier, which I'll call 'Desperation Moves', which can only be used when you've less than 30% health left and consume 200 EXS, and are activated by simply pressing all four buttons together. The last use of the EXS gauge is to enter 'Veil Off', it requires at least 100 EXS, and you enter it by pressing all four buttons, which gives you more attack power and lets you use any Super move(Makes it deplte faster) until it ends.

 It sounds like a lot to take in, and it is, until you get your hands on it and you realize how simple it all is! It sounds overwhelming, but getting the hang of it is very simple, even with the lack of a tutorial mode.... at least for someone with a modicum experience. If there's one thing that 'anime fighters' are known for it's the air combos, and you'd be wrong to expect the same of this game! Jumping is a death sentence, as there is no air blocking, which makes the game a bit more Street Fighter-ish, since your ground game, footsies and pokes, is what will matter the most. Still, it's way faster than any other Street Fighter game, and with some characters, it even lets you chain weak attacks(A) from strong attacks(C)! It's an interesting game, easy to get into, hard to master. Which is probably why I liked it so much. I just can't stop playing it! And for as much as I dislike the Autocombo, it lets others do flashy stuff by just mashing a button, and it's a very simple combo at that, so no unfair advantages.

 As far as visual goes, it uses a rather simple and somewhat cutesy style. Characters have slim, delicate limbs, with huge eyes and simple mouths. Which makes it all the more hilarious when they start cussing around, or talking about killing and the such. It's very, very anime, so if you can't stand it... tread carefully. Animation was fairly good, I didn't find any particularly ugly animation. But if something disappointed me, it was the stages, they are dull and lifeless. Even by now I'd be hard pressed to remember most of them. It makes sense for the stages to be so lifeless, as the game's setting demands it, but they could've liven them up a bit more, add graffiti to the walls, flapping banners on top of the houses, I dunno, something! The music is nothing short of excellent, with each character getting their own tune, and they are all very, very good. Voice Acting is Japanese only, and you might recognize a lot of the voices.

 UNIEL is amazing, plain and simple. Sure, the characters are as cliched and unoriginal as they get, but what Japanese character isn't? No, really. Besides, it's a fighting game, who cares about the story? The gameplay is where it's at, and they knocked it out of the park, with a simple control scheme and a generous combo system, with its fair share of underlying mechanics if you wish to delve deeper into it, makes for a game that is very easy to get into, but hard to master. As much as I'd love to score it a 10, there's a few shortcomings, mostly in the explanation, or lack thereof, department. It needed a proper tutorial, maybe even individual character challenges so that you could get a feel for the characters outside of fumbling around Training mode,  it needed a way to convey more information to the players regarding the story(As uninterested as I was, I'm sure some people care), even adding an in-game encyclopedia would've gone a long way into making the story clearer. Still, most of these didn't really affect me, but there's no denying that it could've done slightly more for the player.
 9.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late

 This game is amazing!!

 I loved Melty Blood back in the day, so I was very, very interested when French-Bread announced Under Night... and very disappointed since only an Arcade release was confirmed, and then the waiting game began.... and it's finally here, and it's everything I wanted. Kinda.

 First, the cast of characters: They are alright. I mean, I love the fact that there's no fanservice, there's no lass wearing a ridiculously skimpy outfit of the likes Japan is so fond of... but none of the characters is particularly note worthy. These aren't bad characters, and maybe after playing with them I will grow to like them, but so far, they are just alright. Oh, and Akatsui from Blitzkampf is in as a guest character! BADASS!

 But where it really shines, is in gameplay. I love it, it's fast, and very easy to get into. It uses three buttons for attacks, like Melty Blood, and a fourth for other actions, and with these four buttons you can pull off a wide variety of technical mechanics. There seems to be a lot of focus on this 'GRD' gauge, which seems to reward 'playing well', and it culminates in a 10% attack buff and free cancels for whoever has the highest GRD. Then there's EXS for the special moves and 'Veil Off'ing. It's very easy to jump in and have fun, since everything combos into everything(Well, not literally, but it's very easy to mash into combos). However, it has that mechanics I hate that many fighters are using nowadays.... the AutoCombo by mashing on the Weak attack button. I understand why it's in the game, but having grown on Fighting games since Street Fighter 2, it's a bit annoying, I just want to mash the weak attack! At least on Persona 4 it made sense, if you got bored of the Story Mode, just mash on the square button and carry on.

 This being a Fighting game, it's unfair to hold the story against it, but... it's a bit ridiculous. They vomit all these terms on you, like 'Hollow Night', 'Night', 'In-Birth', 'Re-birth' and the such, and they expect you to know. There's no Story Mode, and the Instruction Booklet tells you jack, so you must rely on the Internet if you wish to make sense of the story. Me? I don't care, I was having too much fun with the game as to be bothered by it.

 And, by the by, this game had a clearly smaller budget than Blazblue or the like, and they don't charge you for DLC. Extra Color Palettes? Just play one of the many modes, earn points and buy them.

 All I know, is that I'm loving the hell out of UNIBE:L.

Review #216: Escape Dead Island

 Not as bad as you've been lead to believe.

 Funny story 'bout EDI, I've known about it ever since it was first announced, but I wasn't very interested in it. 'Borderlands starts the loot-based RPG FPS and Dead Island copies it, so now that they announces Tales from Borderlands, they have to make an adventure game too, boo!'. And then it released, and reviews poured in, bashing it. But I wasn't listening, I was looking at the gameplay, and it looked like something I would like to play. Turns out, it's not half as bad as they make it out to be. How many 'Worst of 2014' list had this game in them and said that 2014 sucked for gaming? If EDI made it in, 2014 mustn't have been so bad!

 Escape Dead Island begins with Cliff... no, that's not right, it begins with you playing as an Spy of sorts, out to get some mole, as you dismember every enemy in your sight with a Katana.  But once that's over, time moves forward about 6 days, where Cliff and his buddies, Devan and Linda, are on a trip to find out what happened in Banoi Island, by travelling to a neighbor island. It probably makes more sense if you played Dead Island. Disaster strikes and they lose the boat and Cliff gets hit on the head, and it all spirals down for him then. Most of the game is spent either trying to help your friends or deal with Cliff's hallucinations... or are they? The 'maybe it's a dream maybe it's not' angle is a bit cliched, but it can be done well... as for this game? It's alright. It feels a bit rushed, and you'll be able to see most of the twists coming a mile away, but it's not too bad anyways. They also integrate Cliff's apparent insanity into the gameplay, the camera angles may twists, or stuff may rain down on you from thin air. The ending is a bit... off-putting, and makes you wonder just how true is it that this game is the 'missing link' between DI 1 and Riptide.

 Unlike the other games in the series, this is not an RPG FPS. It's not an action game either, this is an adventure game with some Metroidvania elements sprinkled in. You'll come across high ledges, or chambers filled with gas that you can't explore, initially, but get your hands on a grappling hook and a gas mask, and you'll be able to explore them. However, there are no hidden optional areas or nothing of the like, these rooms just hold a few collectibles and bullets, and nothing else. Still, you are rewarded for taking your time and backtracking for them, but they are not mandatory in the slightest. And this is another thing to keep in mind, the game is mostly linear, it's always pushing you forward, you are always told where to go next, and holding L1 triggers a marker towards your destination, but you can explore on your own if you so want to, and you should! However, the in-game map is very unreliable, so hopefully you can navigate your way through, and unlike a bonafide Metroidvania, you don't open up shortcuts, so you've always gotta go through the long way.

 Why would you want to go back and explore these rooms? Well, the game has a whole slew of collectibles. Most of these are pretty much worthless, like taking photos of NPCs or random objects, for some commentary on Cliff's part, or useless postcards but there are a few, like audio logs, that deepen the narrative a bit, not that I cared too much about them. But you may come across the occasional weapon upgrade or health upgrade. The game employs a 'regenerative' health, and you are to realize how hurt you are by how red the screen gets, so it's not readily apparent just how useful the health upgrades are. Same goes for weapons, the game automatically replaces the old weapon for the new one, so you have to trust it that your new weapon is better than the last. One thing to keep in mind is that you can't manually save the game, so even if you found a new collectible, gonna have to wait until you hit a checkpoint and the game decides to autosave, which is pretty annoying in a game like this.

 Combat is... dead simple. Cliff has a Stamina gauge that is tied to Strong attacks, dashing and dodging, which is something that you need to keep in mind when engaging enemies, plus, near the end of the game, you get to choose between melee weapons, and the heavier one consumes Stamina even on weak strikes, but I digress. Weak attacks come in the form of a three hit combo, which is the same regardless of what melee weapon you are using. Eventually you'll come across a gun and a shotgun, these have their uses, like enemies on higher ground, but they are not very reliable. Early in the game, they are fairly good, but latter enemies can take a whole lot of lead. Plus, the game's framerate can be... inconsistent, which can make aiming and shooting a pain in the butt when it's crowded. And even then, it seems that guns have a rather short range, a ton of times I felt as if my bullets should've hit, yet they missed their mark. There's also some rather sloppy stealth mechanics implemented. They're never mandatory, but can make combat a whole lot simpler. By getting to an enemy's back without being noticed, you can press X to pull an instant kill... and sometimes, even if you are in front of them, you have some leeway to get to their back and instant kill them anyways! Still, stealth isn't very polished, sometimes in your favor, sometimes in the enemies', but you are not forced to use them and they can offer a bit of a break from all the fighting.

 In the entire game there's about 5 or 6 different enemy types that get progressively stronger as you go along. It'd be easy to fault it for the simple, and eventually repetitive, combat and the very few enemies you fight... but this game doesn't want to be the next God of War or Devil May Cry. This is an Adventure game, not an Action game, it's focus is on the exploring, on going through the Island, not pulling the fanciest combos and perfectly timed dodges. Which brings me to my next point, there's no Game Overs. Dying has Cliff hold his head in his hands, white out, and recover on the previous checkpoint. Enemies respawn, and you lose anything that you collected between the checkpoint and your death. What's more, lose twice in a row(Or more), and bullets will start spawning next to you. And as easy as it can be... the last stretch of the game has a rather unforgiving difficulty spike. By this time, enemies can take a whole lot of punishment, and you'll be bombarded with enemies from every side. Enemies shooting poison at you, zombies lounging at you, zombies that can hold you from behind so that others can get cheap hits in... It was borderline frustrating to be honest, but the 'infinite lives' made it somewhat tolerable.

 Now then, the game has more than its fair share of problems. Firstly, the framerate. It can't keep a stable framerate at any time. Even moving around barren areas won't be free of hiccups, and during combat it can get pretty bad if you are a gun aficionado, since it will temper with you aiming. The game has some animated 2-D cutscenes... and they all run like garbage, with stuttering audio and visuals, no in small part due to the fact that the game decides to auto-save when they are running. I also came across a couple of bugs. There's this cave, in the Beach Bar, at the start of the game, that has breakable trees coming out of it... this area has an easy-to-fall in corner of which you can't get out. I fell on it three times. Oh, and if you explore it and then try to exit it, it will spawn a breakable branch... that you can't break. You have to reload the game and then exit the cave. This happened twice. Fairly annoying. And then, during the lab sequence, the voices, during dialogue, stopped playing, eventually locking the game on a loading screen. At least it only happened once, and I didn't lose much progress.

 As for replay value, there's a bit actually. The game has a 'New Game+' feature, and apparently, it can be done up to four times, each time you'll get a new key which will allow you to access new areas. Some people speculated that finishing it four times might unlock an extra bit at the end, but I'm not interested in it, not anytime soon anyways. There's also free DLC that adds new weapons, new skins for Cliff, new areas and a new enemy type, which sounds pretty nice, but I wasn't able to try it out(Since I found out about it a bit later after I finished the game).

 I read some comments out there claiming that it looked like a PS2 game. Do you even know how a PS2 game looks? There's good and bad in the visual presentation, though. For instance, the game has a very colorful cell-shaded look, character models look a bit... off for some reason, but the Island is downright beautiful, although there are a couple of ugly textures here and there, like those of windows and glass. Zombies, as mentioned before, come in few types, and they have few 'alternate' looks as well, and they are pretty forgettable for the most part, I didn't care about these enemies in the slightest. One little detail that I loved was that every item or equipment piece that you found is equipped on Cliff, so you can see everything that he is carrying on him, which is really cool. Music on the other hand is laughable. Really, it's pretty bad, there are very few tunes in the game, and they are pretty darn bad. As for the Voice Acting, it was alright, no performance was particularly noteworthy, but I'm not complaining.

 Escape Dead Island is a horribly underrated game. It's far from being a great game, and I'm in no hurry to replay it any time soon, but I liked it a lot, technical issues not withstanding. It's a functional game, with an interesting premise and an alright execution. It was not their best first attempt at a Spin off, but I wouldn't mind seeing them explore the concept in a sequel... provided they can lock that framerate down, polish the combat and add more nuances to it, iron out the bugs, better rewards and a damned jump button!
 5.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Escape Dead Island

 So far... so good?

 Here's the deal, I know about this game's poor reputation, I know that it even made it to some 'Worst of 2014' lists.... but even so, it looked, from what I saw, like a game I would like... and so far, I think I was right.

 I just cleared the Prologue, and I felt like it was a good stopping point to write my first impressions and see how they change, 'sides, it's before you get to play as the douchebag on the cover! Well, I like the gameplay. It's simple, but fun. Attacks lack some oomph, mainly in the sound department, but it's just a minor issue. A bigger issue, but one I didn't care for, is that Stealth is... wonky, for lack of a better word. Walk in front of a Zombie? It's cool, you get a couple of seconds before it notices you. Run? The immediately notice and run towards you. Oh, and there's the guns. If you have a gun equipped, pressing Square or Triangle instantly brings out your sword, which is useful and makes sense... but once the sword is out, the gun gets unequipped. I understand why, L2 acts as Melee targeting or as free-aiming for the guns, but it could've been handled a bit better I think.

 The last thing I want to mention, is that I don't know how I feel about the graphics yet. It's very cartoonish, and colorful, which normally, I would like... but I think the game tries to take itself seriously. Not that a cell-shaded, cartoonish game can't be serious, but if it tries to convey horror.... the colorful, cartoony look isn't the best. And you can't do much 'psychological horror' with Zombies, so that excuse is null and void.

 All in all... I like it. Maybe the critics were wrong, or maybe the game just manages to check all the boxes of things I like. Either way, it's on!