Review #223: Legacy of Kain - Soul Reaver

 Because Kain's arrogance is large enough to contain yet another game.

 Remember that old chap, Kain? Y'know, that guy who got killer, then turned into a vampire, and then had to decide either to sacrifice himself, and the vampire race, for the good of Nosgoth, or damn them all and, well, live? Well, he chose the latter. And he wasted no time, he made himself quite the army, with Raziel being his right hand. And then Raziel had to go and evolve before Kain, which made Kain a bit angry and offed Raziel... Or so he thought. Kinda. Turns out Raziel spent 500 years in pain, but a strange voice claims to have helped him. Sure, he lost some weight. And his jaw. As a matter of fact, he lost his physical form, but thanks to this new benefactor, Raziel is now a Wraith. He can consume souls to will himself into the material world if he so chooses you. Raziel is pissed, and now makes it his quest to end his killer, Kain, and the rest of his brethren.

 Soul Reaver is a third person adventure game not unlike Zelda. Y'know how Zelda loves the 'two worlds' mechanics? Well, Raziel gets to travel between the Material world and the Spectral world. As a matter of fact, you can go into the Spectral World at any time, and you are forced into it if you lose all your health. The only way to enter the Material world, however, requires Raziel's 'stamina' to be full, which is done by consuming the souls of the denizens of the Spectral world, and then you must find a blue portal. The dynamic between both worlds is quite interesting, since Raziel has no matter, he can't interact with anything on the Spectral world(Besides ledges and the such), however, the Spectral world is twisted, literally, so a previously unreachable ledge might be easier to get onto through the Spectral world. Sometimes you'll have to move a block, pull a lever or the such in the Material world, so as to be able to reach someplace else in the Spectral world.

 And then comes my first problem with the exploration, which is the lack of directions. The world of Soul Reaver is kinda large, but there's no map or compass to help you guide your way. Whenever you are given hints of where to go, the voice will say 'Go West of X', which would be helpful if only I knew where West was! Speaking of the voice, there are no real 'checkpoints' in the game besides the 'Gates'(More on these later), and while you can save your game at any time, every time you continue your file, you'll start from the voice's abode. This can translate into a lot of walking, and maybe even solving some platforming puzzles again. Then we have the 'Gates' that teleport you to other 'Gates', but the only way to distinguish these gates is from their symbols. So you better remember that the symbol that looks like a 3 takes you to the Swamp. Was it so hard to just write the name of the area below the gate? It's needlessly complicated!

 There were also a couple of kinks with the overall gameplay that are a bit hard to ignore. The camera is a bit wonky, every now and then, it's gonna stick way too close to Raziel's back, luckily you are given manual input over it with the shoulder buttons(Why not the right analog stick?), and you're going to need to use them to get the most out of the camera. The game also has some very noticeable framerate issues, sometimes they can get in the way of your inputs, making you miss actions like jumps. It can get a bit annoying. The game also tried to make away with loading screens, which was a noble endeavor, but you can tell that the game will sometimes slow down in order to allow it to load, and if it gets coupled with the framerate issues... well, you are in for a bad time! And lastly we've got the jumping... some of the jumps demand a bit too much precision, and Raziel's movement really isn't up to snuff.

 Combat is a very simple, one-button affair, but there's some nuance to it. Your enemies in the Material World are different forms of devolved vampires, and vampires just can't be killed by normal means. You must find weapons to impale them with, water or fire to throw them on, heck, even sunlight will do the trick. You'll also need to consume their soul if you don't want them coming back to life! Early through the game you'll earn the Spectral Soul Reaver, which only manifests on the Material World if your health is full, the Soul Reaver makes your enemies explode, so that even if you don't consume their souls, they can't come back, so it encourages you to do well in battle, keep your health and thus keep the powerful Reaver.

 As you defeat the Vampire Generals you'll earn different skills, which can be used for puzzling, battling or both. As a matter of fact, it's a good idea to backtrack whenever you get new skills, as there's a lot of goodies to be found. There's items to extend your health bar in the Material World, and there's 5 hidden 'Glyphs', which are powerful spells to deal with enemies. All of these are optional, and many of them are hidden in optional dungeons! There really is a lot of stuff to see and do in Soul Reaver. Even if some of it is a bit... cryptic. Some of the puzzles I admit where a bit too complex to finish without a guide, there's this one puzzle in particular, a boss actually, that you need to realize, somehow, that you can lure it outside his arena, and then, somehow, figure out to bring him back to a previous room in the dungeon, in which you already solved the puzzle, and activate the mechanism to destroy him. I'd really love to know how are you supposed to realize all of this by yourself.

 The game looks fantastic, no two questions about it. There's not a whole lot of different enemies, but each 'sub-race' looks different enough. Bosses are large and menacing(As menacing as the PS1 can make them look anyways), and then there's Raziel... Raziel's design is incredibly unique, and the in-game model does it justice. While the Spectral World can be a bit dull in all its blues, Nosgoth is a pleasure to explore, and each area is unique enough so that you can easily identify them. If one thing is consistently top-notch in the LoK series, it's the voice acting, and this game is no exception. Kain's Voice Actor is as phenomenal as always, and the newcomer's Raziel's voice actor matches him in quality. The music can be a bit forgettable, there are many different tunes, but I'd be hard pressed to remember any of them.

 I criticized the game a lot, but the fact is, the game is excellent. There are issues, there are flaws and it has a couple of problems, but the game manages to pull through. Exploring Nosgoth and finding all of its secrets was a blast, most of the puzzles were fun to figure out, even if a few can get a bit too complex.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Legacy of Kain - Soul Reaver

 It's a doozy.

 Raziel has to be one of the greatest characters ever conceived. Both in his outward design and the story surrounding him. He loos amazing, mysterious and interesting, his abilities and limitations also play a huge part in what he is, and so is his story and the trials he faces until his eventual fate in Defiance, but I'm getting ahead of myself, ain't I?

 Speaking of 'the greatest things ever', the opening FMV to the game has to be one of the most iconic scenes in gaming, at least of its era. I didn't remember much of the game(Though it came back to me as I payed), but the opening? That one's engraved on my memories for life. It's short and straight to the point, giving you all the information you need to know, it's brutal, and thanks to the accompanying  narration, makes you feel empathy towards Raziel, who is supposed to be a bit of a prick. And then there's the fact that it looks amazing to boot. And it doesn't end there, the game's presentation is top notch as well. Graphics look glorious for a PS1 game, and using the PS3's smoothing options makes it look even better, the voice acting is up to it's usual high standards(For the franchise) and the music completely immerses you in this decayed Nosgoth.

 But looks don't make a game, not that it would matter, since Soul Reaver plays relatively smooth. The camera needs some manual aid, but control Raziel is simple, despite him having a ton of actions under his belt, and disposing of the enemy vampires is a blast. Kain really didn't have the best interest of his kin in mind when he redesigned Nosgoth in his image, so many pointy decorations on which to get impaled? And so many torches on which to get burned on? Kain, you moron!

 You could say that I'm liking Soul Reaver a fair bit, and you'd be right!

Second Time Around: Blood Omen 2 Part 2

 This is what I'd call a Hot Mess.

 Man, where do I start with this one? Maybe by saying that it's a wonky game. Gameplay is wonky, level design is wonky and the presentation is wonky. Take the gameplay, moving and exploration feels OK, with a few quirks, like not being able to glide too far(An invisible barrier will stop you in your tracks!) or how rotating actually rotates Kain, without any leg movement. And the combat? It's slow and clunky. Don't get me wrong, it works and gets the job done, but you'll notice some oddities, like being able to interrupt some enemy combos, or getting stuck in place because the hitbox of their attack actually hit you, even if the animation didn't. Speaking of weird hitboxes, sometimes it feels as if unless you are actually targeting the enemy, your attacks won't register. Sometimes. As a whole, combat feels clunky.

 Then there's the level design, which is a mixed bag. Levels look amazing, that's the biggest sell of the game, the gorgeous architecture and artistic design of the world of Nosgoth. But as for the levels themselves, they have some issues. Firstly, I've seen a lot of people call this one an action game, they are wrong. The puzzle-to-slashing ratio favors the former. There's so many puzzles that sometimes they feel forced, or without a raison d'etre. It's easier to make my point with a couple of examples... For instance, there's this stage in which your path eventually leads you into a random house, and said house happens to have a cracked floor and a box. Just because. But why did Kain even consider entering THAT house in particular? Or another stance in which the road forks, on one end there's a gate, and on the other one there's a warehouse. For whatever reason Kain decides to fumble with the controls, there's no hint as to WHY you are doing it, but you happen to free a monster that takes care of the gate. It's like there's puzzles for the sake of puzzles, but they couldn't be bothered to give you a reason to do them, so to speak. Since I mentioned that time in which you must enter a house, sometimes you'll have to open doors, which sounds like something stupid to mention, but the game is full of doors, 90% which you can't open, so if your path ends for whatever reason, you have to approach every door to check if it gets highlighted and you can open it. It feels random. That said, most of the puzzles were actually quite entertaining to figure out.

 And then we come to the performance... This may be exclusive to the PS2(I heard it was the worst port of the game), but the game runs terribly. The framerate is horrid, expect drops at a second's notice. The cutscenes are terrible as well, particularly on the sound department. Sometimes, ambient noise will drown out the voices, which is particularly annoying, or some cutscenes will lack music, or sound effects and sometimes, even both. On the flip side, voice acting is pretty good for the most part, with a couple of exceptions. Kain's VA is still top-notch and completely sells you on the character.

 Speaking of Kain, nay, of the Legacy of Kain, this game feels superfluous. It does little, if anything, to further the lore of the franchise. Sure, we get to see Kain be an arrogant prick, which is entertaining, but it does little for the franchise as a whole. Then there's the fact that it introduces a couple of plot holes. Y'see, Defiance was meant to explain that Kain actually revived Vorador, and Janos' resurrection as well, but as with most Legacy of Kain games, it was rushed and the explanations were never given. The end result, is that this game not only does little for the lore, but it actually introduces a couple of plot holes. Way to go. And as much as I enjoyed the script, the 'love' subplot was executed terribly, Kain never shows any kind of endearment, or even thought about Umah, but we are to believe that he felt something for her?

 Y'know what's the saddest part about Blood Omen 2? That beneath all of its issues lies a good game. There are good ideas, if a bit half baked. With some ironing out, it could've been really good, but as it stands, it is a memorable game, just not a particularly good one.
 5.5 out of 10


 And now comes the part where I re-read my old review, just for kicks... Wow, I actually agree with the me of two years ago, heck, I mentioned things I actually forgot, like the dumb AI or the terrible checkpoint spread. I also mentioned that the dialogue had some particularly bad lines, but to be honest, I can't remember anything to cheesy, except maybe the Seer's pleasure at being bitten but Kain. And I like the fact that I appreciated how the environments looked, since it is a very appealing world.

 This concludes the 'Blood Omen' branch of the Legacy of Kain series, sadly Kain won't be playable again until Defiance, but I'll get to see him quite a bit. Hopefully he is as arrogant as he was(I can't remember much of Soul Reaver's characterization!).

Review #222: Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain

 Why hadn't I played this game before?!

 Blood Omen had a rather... tumultuous development, barred in shady deals and mystery, which wound up with Kain and the world of Nosgoth, both conceived by Dennis Dyack from Silicon Knights, in Crystal Dinamics hands. Luckily the end result wasn't affected by it, even if it's a bit sad that the creator lost his character and the world he had imagined.

 The game is an isometrical adventure game in which you play as Kain, a nobleman, who finds himself without drink or bed, and is killed under an assault by bandits. Luckily, the game doesn't end there, a mysterious benefactor offers him a chance for revenge, in exchange for his humanity. Now a vampire, revenge is everything that Kain cares about, and about 30 minutes into the game, he achieves it.... but that's not the end of it. Kain gets, much to his chagrin, tied up in restoring the Nine Pillars that hold the world of Nosgoth together. The story and the lore of Blood Omen are both very interesting, it's a very bleak, dark setting, with a very deranged cast of characters. Most interesting of all being Kain, Kain is no hero, but he is not a villain either. He is given the option, if he so wants, to feed on helpless victims, as well as kill any non-important NPC in the game, if the player so wants to. You don't have to, but nothing is stopping you, and due to his vampirism, drinking the blood of these poor peasants might be the only way to heal yourself. But that? That's just a facet of his persona tied to the gameplay, Kain has a personality, and he will offer a lot of monologues, in which he always loves to inject his opinion or feelings about the matter. He is a very colorful narrator to say the least, and listening to him is always very interesting.

 The game has often been called a 'Dark Legend of Zelda' and the comparison is valid, but it's also so much more. Kain is a vampire, which I mentioned like three times already, and this confers to him a wide variety of spells and abilities, all of which must be found around the world of Nosgoth. He can transform into Bats, Wolf or Mist forms, not unlike Castlevania's Alucard, as well as disguise himself in order to be able to enter towns without having guards trying to slay him or be able to speak with NPCs. Bat form is a glorified teleportation method, it allows Kain to automatically fly to certain marked locations on the map. Wolf grants him speed and allows him to jump over small obstacles, while Mist lets him walk over water or other harmful floor obstacles without a hitch. Finally, Kain can strengthen his basic form by equipping different weapons or armor, all of which have nice secondary effects. For example, his basic armor provides protection from fire, but there's one that automatically sucks the blood out of his enemies, so that he can simply hack away, one that deflects some of the damage back to his enemies and another one that divides damage between his life bar and the mana bar. Then there's the weapons, the club can't kill, so you can feed without accidentally killing an enemy, as well as destroying certain boulders, and the axes are fast and deal a lot of damage while also being able to cut down certain trees, or a fire sword, that is just awesome and burns down your enemies.

 Then there's spells, of which there are many. You have a boring bolt of energy, which is quite useful, the Repel spell, which is the best spell in the entire game, it makes Kain invincible for a while as well as deflect any projectile that comes his way. There's also one spell that makes enemies fight each other, one that lets him possess an enemy, and another one that sucks the blood out of every nearby enemy. Options, there's many of them. As you've probably guessed, the game has many puzzles that involve all of Kain's abilities. Some are as easy as stepping over a tile or a switch, but you'll also need to use your spells and forms in order to get around. And just like Zelda, the game takes place on a rather large overworld, and it has a lot, and I do mean a LOT, of optional content. The game actually keeps track of the 'secrets' you find, there's 100 of them, and finding all of them without a guide is quite the task. The rewards do vary though, sometimes you'll get just a couple of items, but a few of them house items that increase your life bar and mana bar, as well as a couple of spells that are pretty easy to miss( And you don't really need, but they are nice to have!).

 And despite how awesome it sounds, it does have a fair amount of flaws, but I chalk them up to its age. The combat, while offering a lot of choice, isn't all that good, it's a very simple 'mash square' affair, no dodges, no blocking, no nothing, but the worst offender being the hitboxes. Sometimes they work on your favor, sometimes they don't, basically, you'll see a lot of slashes, both from you and your enemies, that should've hit but didn't. Take your energy blasts, a lot of times I knew that I hit thin air, but it still registered as a hit(Not that I really cared, since it made my job much easier!). And as soon as you get the Repel spell, the game becomes noticeably easier. As a matter of fact, couple the 'reflective armor' with Repel, and enemies kill themselves while attempting to kill you, without damaging you, and since they deal little damage to themselves, they end up on the 'sway animation', allowing you to feed. The camera is also a bit... unsatisfactory. You can zoom in or out, but the zoomed in camera is atrocious, you can't see anything coming up ahead. And the zoomed out camera doesn't always have Kain on the center, so it can be a bit disorienting until you get used to it. Still, you can zoom out even further(So much that Kain becomes invisible and an arrow has to point at his location), which is useful for scouting out the area.

 But the most annoying part of the game? The loading screens. There's a loading bar for every menu that you enter or exit, any area that you enter or exit. Oh, and you need to enter these menus to change your equipment. They tried to accommodate for this by forcing you to use 'quick menus', basically, you have to go to the 'Start' menu, and put four spells on a 'quick menu' and four items on another one, then if you want to use any of those, you press R1 for spells or R2 for items, and then you select them, so that you can press X to use them. But even in that case, the quick menus have a very quick loading in and out, at least it's much faster than going to the start menu. But weapons? Nope, gonna have to get used to the loading times. It's pretty annoying in certain sections in which you need to use the axes, to cut down trees, but want to use spells or items. Y'see, equipping the Axes doesn't allow you to use spells or items, so if you are low on health or want to use magic, you are gonna have to go in and out of the menus, to equip and unequip the axes, and then back again. There's only a couple of these areas, but you are gonna hate them.

 There's no way around it, the game is ugly. The game employs a rather muddy color palette, and the character and monster sprites are rather ugly, you can actually make out some details on them when zoomed in, but losing sight of your surroundings isn't worth it. And the FMVs? They are animated quite awkwardly, and the characters are rather ugly(Particularly Kain)... however, I kinda looked forward to them, due, not in small part, to the fantastic voice acting. Every character in the game sold me on their performance, as a matter of fact, listening to Kain was quite delightful! And it'd better, guy's really talkative! The music was also really good, it set up the dark, mysterious mood that Nosgoth promises.

 At the end of the day, I put up with all its quirks, because the game is so damn good. As a matter of fact, I'd say that the game was a bit ahead of its time. Having an anti hero as the playable character, a day and night cycle, that strengthens Kain at night, and sometimes it requires a particular night(Say, full moon) to access some areas, and the whole, big overworld with NPCs that could be killed in a whim... It certainly was ambitious, far more than what the developers could harness on the PS1 at the time. It's a dated game, one with personality, with great ideas and a good execution, bar some limitations at the time.
 8.0 out of 10

Second Time Around: Blood Omen 2 Part 1

 Kain's back!

 I did finish Blood Omen 1, but since writing about it would take longer than writing a 'Now Playing' thingie... here we are, I'm dead tired, sue me.This is the thing... Not only have I played BO 2 before, but I also covered it on the blog(In a very cringe worthy way). Which is why I'm gonna be a lot more loose with this one, it's more of a... 'let's see how it stacks up now' kinda thing. After I 'review' it again, I'ma check back on my previous piece and compare if I had the same issues as before, or if I found new ones or whatever. And another thing, since I'm replaying it, I used the Soul Reaver cheat, and I'm not even ashamed!

 So, things I like: The graphics. I like the environments, the architecture, I love it, it makes Nosgoth comes to life. Sucking the blood out of your enemies(Or victims) feels so flippin' good, it oughta be one of the most rewarding things in gaming ever.

 Then there's the things I don't like... like losing health constantly, I understand WHY they did it, but I don't like it. And the controls? Who though tank controls were a good idea!?

 All in all, I like what I played.

Now Playing: Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain

 And thus begins the Legacy of Kain-athon.

 So, what does the Legacy of Kainathon entails? There's five games in the series, with two 'branches' that merge into the fifth, final game. There's the Blood Omen branch, which includes Blood Omen and Blood Omen 2 and the Soul Reaver branch that includes Soul Reaver and Soul Rever 2, and then there's Defiance, the last game that ties both narratives together. Kinda, since it picks off from Soul Reaver 2. Regardless, there's two ways in which you can play these games, if you care about chronoligical order that is: Blood Omen, Blood Omen 2, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and finally Defiance or Blood Omen, Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2 and Defiance. Why is that? Blood Omen 2, technically, takes place on an alternate timeline created during Soul Reaver 2. But the way I see it, Blood Omen 2, whether it's what actually happened or what happens after fumbling with the timeline, it follows Blood Omen, so it makes sense to play it after Blood Omen. And yes, I did review Blood Omen 2, but I will give it another look and see how I feel about it two years later.

 Thus begins my journey with Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain. It's... it's surprisingly fun. I mean... it's an isometrical adventure game, with a very dated, muddy look and the combat is simple to a fault... and yet something about it sunk its claws on me. At the outset, the game looks massive. There's 9 pillars that require fixing, which involves killing its keeper, and I gave the map a look... and it's kinda huge. I like how it seems that the game will give you a ton of abilities, I read the instruction booklet, so I know that I will get an axe at some point, and with it I will be able to chop down trees! Not only that, I got the wolf form and now I can jump over small ledges! I can't wait to see what the game throws at me. That said, I'm cautiously worried about bosses, just how much fun can they be with these simple mechanics? Combat involves mashing on Square and hoping for the best, no dodges, no defense no nothing... although I found out that it's pretty easy to move around enemy attacks before slashing them a couple of times and then rinse and repeat. Still, there's no depth to the combat, so... let's see what the game pulls off.

 All in all, it feels like a great way to start the franchise, and this style of gameplay won't be revisited by any of the subsequent games! That said, I noticed that there seem to be a rather obvious focus on puzzles, which is what the other games focused on as well... except Defiance... But I'm getting ahead of myself, and my memory of Defiance and the Soul Reaver games might fail me. There I am, digressing again! All that matters is that Blood Omen led me off to a great start!

Review #221: Red Faction 2

 DESTROY EVERYTHIIIIIING... or just, y'know, a few select walls and floors.

 Red Faction was, as far as I remember, one of the early games announced for the then-new PS2. It boasted having fully destructible environments, and while I never played the first one, nor am I interested in doing so, I did play the sequel. Twice.

 The game has two modes: Single Player/Story and Multiplayer. First comes the Single Player Mode, and I'd like to delve into the Story a bit... but it's hard without spoiling it. Y'see, there are few story bits, but it's there, and it moves rather fast. To say the least, it has a plot twist halfway into the game, and I don't remember how I felt about it when I first played the game, but this time around, knowing that it would happen, I didn't notice any foreshadowing or what not, so I think it's safe to assume that it will take some people but surprise.  And hey, it's a twist befitting of an action movie... or well, game. There's also a pseudo-karma mechanic that affects which ending you get, just don't shoot civilians and you'll get the good one! All that said, it's rather short, clocking at about 4-5 hours.

 As far as Story Mode is concerned, I had a couple of issues with it, gameplay wise. Firstly, the feature that they boasted of the most: Destructible Environments. It's a lie. That is to say, there are breakable walls and floors, but they are specific walls and floors. Sometimes you are required to destroy structures in order to continue, but it's a feature that's very underused and the novelty wears off pretty darn fast. Then there's the enemy AI... it's spotty at best. I played the game on the medium difficulty, and most enemies refuse to try to avoid my grenades, and they rarely strafe or move, opting instead to stand in front of you, gunning you down. Later in the game a new enemy is introduced, the last enemy type as a matter of fact, and I like to call them 'The Cowards', these bastards are a real pain in the butt to defeat, as they love, love to round around, without even shooting, just running away from you. And most enemies in the game are immune to head shots and a bit of bullet sponges. There's also a few sections with enemies that spawn indefinitely, so your best bet would be to avoid them and run. And you know what? Despite all that, the game isn't particularly hard. I must've died 4-5 times throughout the entire game. The last thing I want to mention is the lack of subtitles. This is a First Person Shooter, a game that involves a lot of shooting. If NPCs decide to talk to you during a shoot out, believe me, you won't catch a single word they say.

 Then there's the Multiplayer Mode, and it's pretty neat. There's about 30 maps, and not only can you play against another player, you can also add bots to either solo or multiplayer bouts! Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, 'Bagman', Regime and Arena, most which can be played in teams. Bagman and Regime are basically the same, if you become the dictator/bagman, stay alive for as long as you can. Every weapon from the Story Mode makes it in, and some maps even house a few destructible walls! All in all, not a bad offering.

 Red Faction 2 is a First Person Shooter, but an oldschool one at that. For instance, you can carry a gazillion weapons on you, something I appreciate even if switching weapons with a Joystick can be a bit slow, and there's no 'Iron Sights' aiming mode, but at least each weapon gets a 'secondary fire'. Not gonna lie, it takes a little while getting used to. You are also lacking regenerative health... kinda. You can pick up Health Packs, but these act as extra life bars, up to three of them, and your life bar can regenerate if you stay outta combat for a while. A rather long while, so it's usually not a mechanic you can rely on. Still, what took the most getting used to where the controls. Thankfully you can customize them to your liking, so after some fumbling about I managed to get a more modern set-up, one I grew accustomed to in recent years. And hey, the back of the box claims that it supports the PS2 keyboard and mouse, so there's always that.

 The game looks fairly good. Character models are a bit... ugly. To be fair, their designs are at fault, as the models themselves are fine. The environments are a bit repetitive, and with a rather dull color palette, nothing memorable or worth writing home about. Luckily the weapons, what you'll get to see most of the time, look pretty impressive. They even manged to make the good, ol' boring gun look cool. The shooting feedback feels pretty good as well. The music took me by surprise, the soundtrack is pretty damn fine. There's a lot of heavy music, which fits nicely and sounds fantastic. Another thing that took me by surprise... voice acting. It's quite good, and it features a couple of known actors, like Jason Statham!

 I liked Red Faction 2. It's a game that certainly shows its age, but remains a fun little romp. It's probably not a good idea to expect as much destructibility as it claims, or rather claimed, but the weaponry is fun to wield and the core gameplay is pretty decent.

 7.0 out of 10. 

Now Playing: Red Faction II

 Them cliches...!

 Red flippin' Faction 2. I used to LOVE this game, I particularly remember being very fond of the Assault Rifle that you get late into the game, thing looked so epic and felt so good. But that was then and this is now.

 So far I've cleared the first mission, and I'm pretty sure I am now playing the mission in which you are betrayed. Oh yeah, I remember it clear as day, heck, I even remember who the final boss was. But I digress, what matters is how I feel about it now... and I feel like it's a bit dated. I've grown too comfortable with what FPS games have become, this harkens from an era way before 'Iron sights' was a thing, so yeah, aiming takes a bit getting used to. Know what else takes getting used to? The controls. L1 is Jump, like, what the hell? I took a couple of seconds to rework the controls a bit, and they are fairly comfortable now, thank god for customizable controls!

 As for the game's main selling point, back in the day, was the destructible environments and.. they are... there? I mean, some structures can be broken, and others cannot, and as far as I could tell, there's no tell or sign on what can be demolished and what can't. So yeah, it's a feature I don't really care about.

 Know what I do care about? Health. This game is before 'Regenerating Health' was a thing, this is hardcore, I love it.

 To sum up: It has aged, but I'm enjoying it. Of course, I've only cleared the first mission, so there's still time before I can safely say how I feel about it. Oh well, time to get stabbed in the back by these bastards.

Review #220: Super Smash Bros. for 3DS

 Just what I expected. Sorta.

 What started as a humble mascot fighter back on the Nintendo 64 is, nowadays, an event. Whenever a new Smash Bros is announced, people get hyped and hungry for any sort of leak on the final roster. If one thing's for sure, is that Smash is yet to disappoint... Unless you are into competitive Smash, but that's a can of worms I'm not willing to open.

 Well, I'm gonna start with the menu because it bears mentioning... it's a bit of a mess. Upon starting the game you are greeted with buttons of different shapes and sizes that lead you to 'Smash', 'Smash Run' and 'Games and More'... and it's in 'Games and more' where 'classic' lays hidden. Frankly, the menus are cluttered and a mess, why hide Classic, arguably the game's main single player component, under a sub menu? like, really. Once you learn to navigate the menus, you'll have access to these modes: Classic, Smash(Online/Offline), Smash Run, Street Smash, Training, Customization and Stadium, where Multi-man melee, Destroy the Targets and hit the bag reside. Where to start with? Classic has been redesigned, no longer do you follow a straight path, but rather, it features branching paths, that all end up against a Mii army and later the Master/Crazy Hand boss. The difficulty selection has also been tweaked a bit, it defaults at 2.0, but you can raise it up to 9.0 by betting coins... or spend coins to lower it below 2.0. You can't change your life stocks, but you start each fight with 2 lives, regardless if you died previously or not. Dying forcefully drops the difficulty setting and lowers the rewards, heck, you may even lose some rewards. All in all, Classic Mode is... it's alright, I much prefer the older set-up, but it's not bad by any means.

 Hit the Bag works just as it did before, pummel on the sand bag and then hit it with the Homerun bat trying to send it as far as you can. Target Blast is no longer an individual challenge depending on which character you choose, but rather a generic mini-game inspired by Angry Birds and the sort. As for Multi-Man Smash it features 10-man, 100-man, 3 min, Endless and Cruel variations, alongside a new 'Rival Smash' in which you must defeat more enemies than an enemy CPU. Smash Run is a weird mode... You've 5 minutes to traverse a medium-sized stage, and defeat as many enemies as you can, featuring NPC enemies from the many Nintendo franchises, although mostly from Kid Icarus Uprising, and collect power ups, so that you have better stats to face another 3 players in a random challenge. It can be a race, or just a run-of-the mill Smash battle. Hilariously, while every player goes through the same map, and can interfere with the other players by using 'powers', you can't actually interact with them directly. Honestly, it's a terrible successor to Sub-Space Emissary, and while it can be fun the first couple of times, and even though the enemies vary between playthroughs, you always go through the same map and it gets very repetitive, very fast. I understand why Sakurai, the director, did away with the Sub-Space Emissary, but I don't agree with it. Heck, even Melee's Adventure Mode was much more interesting than Smash Run.

 Then we have the Normal Smash game, that can be fought either in Stock or Time-based matches against CPUs, Offline or Online against other players. On the plus side, there's an 'Omega' form to every single stage in the game, so that tournament players can fight on t boring, plain and obstacle-less versions of the stages. Heck, you can play 'For Glory' online in order to fight without items and on the Omega Stages, to accommodate for them! As per usual, you can individual items on or off, but... you can't change the frequency. They are either On or Off, and there's probably an explanation for it.... the 3DS' processor probably couldn't handle having the Frequency on high, since it'd imply having a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Then there's Street Smash, a Street-pass based mode, although you can train against CPUs, which has you sliding a puck around, with the touchscreen, trying to through the other pucks outside the platform. It's dull and boring, and I don't understand why there's about 3 challenges surrounding them. Oh, yes, Challenges are back. Think of them as trophies, there's 105 of them, and they are fun...ish. You see, they can get, nay, they will get long in the tooth as a lot of them require finishing X mode with all 40+ characters. Needless to say, Challenges are best enjoyed as something that you clear slowly, rather than trying to clear them all as soon as possible. Hilariously, there's a couple of them that are quite... arbitrary, to say the least, like say... 'play 3 smash matches as Samus', which feel a bit like filler.

 In All-Star Mode you must defeat all fighter, which appear in the order in which they made their first appearance. But the last mode, and the more interesting one, is Customization. Playing through the many modes will earn you three type of rewards: Coins, Trophies and Customization items. Customization items range from costumes, to passive items to moves. Costumes are equipped on the Miis, yes, you can create Miis, there's three archetypes: Brawler, Swordfighter and Gunner, they have derivative movesets(Mario, Link, Samus), but they get their own unique moves, it's pretty neat! The Passive items can be equipped on the Miis or on the normal characters, and they raise and decrease different stats. Lastly there's the Customization Moves, every character gets two different variations to each of their special moves. It is true that not all Custom moves where made equal, some share the same animations and only change the properties of the move, while others like... Kid Icarus' Palutena gets 12 possible different moves altogether. Still, it's a really cool twist, and something I hope they keep for future installments.

 Now I want to talk about the roster... Firstly, there were cuts. Ice Climbers, due to the 3DS' poor processor, Wolf, Lucas, Snake, Squirtle and Ivysaur. Charizard, Zelda, Sheik, Samus and Zero Suit Samus were reworked into individual characters. The 'Gliding' mechanic that only some characters had is gone completely. Every character now gets at least 8 colors, and in some cases, these colors feel more like costumes. Now then, as far as the returning characters go, everyone feels new. Not only thanks to the new engine, but you'll notice at least one or two new animations on every returning character, in some cases there's new attacks. Sadly, while some characters that didn't need a new Ultimate Smash got one, like Kirby, others like Peach and Jigglypuff keep their useless Ultimate Smashes. I absolutely loved all the new comers, minus one I will elaborate upon shortly, it feels as if every new character has something, some new mechanic that makes him completely unique to the rest of the cast. Like Robin having 'ammo' on his specials and smashes, the Villager having a Down Special that changes depending on the tree he plants or Megaman having projectiles as his basic attack. I feel like this is not only the largest, but the best roster that Smash has ever had. Clones are a necessary evil, they allow you to have more characters, but spend less time and money of them, both developers and players win. I could rant about Ganon keeping his cloned moveset from Captain Falcon, but I won't, instead I will rant about Dark Pit. Y'see, I don't mind clones because we get different characters, in this game we get Lucina, we get Doctor Mario, these have different models than the characters they are cloned from. They add variety. Dark Pit looks exactly like Pit, he is nothing but a glorified 8 extra colors for Pit. I even dare say that having Dark Pit in the game cheapens the roster. Look at Alph, he shares a slot with Olimar, yet they have different models... but Dark Pit gets his very own slot? Really?

 I will digress a bit, but you will indulge me, since this is my blog. Before the game's release, people were accusing Sakurai of having bias towards Kid Icarus Uprising, the last game he released before Smash. Palutena made it into the game, and I didn't care, Kid Icarus had a new game recently, Palutena was fine. A lot of weapons and enemies from Uprising were recycled for Smash Run, once again, I didn't really care. But Dark Pit? Why... why would you give him his own slot? I'd rather get Roy back. Pichu. Wolf. Lucas. Anyone but Dark Pit. Anyone but a glorified extra 8 colors for Pit. Mind you, I don't like the game any less due to Dark Pit's presence, nor did it affect my enjoyment of the game in any way, but that doesn't mean I don't get to hate the fact that he is in the game over other, more worthy clones.

 Now with that out of the way, how did I feel about the game? Well, it is Smash through and through, and on the go to boot! The game does feel faster than Brawl, which I like, but not as fast as melee, which I don't mind, and they got rid of tripping. Thank god. Ledges have been reworked, so that if you get on an edge on which an enemy is holding on to... you will push him out of it. It will certainly change how the game is played, as edge-guarding is no longer an option. I liked Edge-Guarding, it could provide some very exciting moments, but this is different, and different is not necessarily bad. The controls are a bit... they aren't terrible, but the 3DS' nub isn't up to snuff. I don't think anyone will take competitive 3DS Smash too seriously as to care for it though. On the bright side, controls can be customized almost entirely, however, the Digital Pad has to do the taunts and the analog stick has to be used for movement. It would've been nice to be able to map movement to the digital pad, but that would mean losing the tilt attacks, so I understand why they did it. As for the gameplay, they managed to keep frame drops to a minimum. If you play without items, you won't get any frame drops at all, and when items come into the equation... it takes for a very crowded scenario for the framerate to drop.

 As well as the game runs, it does have some issues... The game is a bit of a handful on the 3DS' processor, you can tell simply by how long it takes for the OS to restart after closing the game. But there's another tell... in my 20-hour experience with the game, it crashed twice on me. No other 3DS game has EVER crashed on me. I did some research, and it seems I'm not the only one that had the game crash. It's rare enough as not to be an annoyance, but it's still worth a mention. The game does include a lot of content though. There's a lot of music tracks, over 40 characters, a ton of stages(Both new and returning from previous installments), alternate Special moves for every character, a ton, and I do mean a ton of trophies with their own colorful descriptions.... This is a game that can potentially soak up a lot of time, and it doesn't feel like a grind. Unless you are an idiot like me and try to get all the challenges in a short period of time. Do not do that, or the game will get repetitive and even slightly boring.

 The visual presentation is absolutely gorgeous. I dare say that it looks even better than Melee. There were a few concessions made in order to get it looking so good... while the game runs at 60 FPS, secondary NPCs, like Pokemon or Assist Trophies, move at 30 FPS. It's a tad jarring, but nothing too bad. The music... It's Nintendo, and it features tons of classic tunes from the many franchises featured in the game, there's absolutely no way to dislike the soundtrack. Unless, y'know, you have a different taste. But whatevs'

 So, Smash Bros on the 3DS... it's exactly what I wanted. A portable version of Smash Bros. I like how it feels like an in-between Melee and Brawl, it's not too much like either game(Although it tilts towards Brawl), and I like it for that. I loved 99% of the new comers, I loved the new stages and am pretty OK with the ones they chose to make a return. Some of the Challenges could've been better thought-out, and the fact that it can crash is a bit scary, but the game saves often enough as to make it a non-issue. All in all, I liked it. It's not the system seller I thought it would be, but I can't say that I didn't get flippin' Smash on the flippin' go.
 8.5 out of 10.

Archile's Grab-bag : 'nother day, 'nother TMNT game Edition

  New Package, yadda yadda

 Mega Man - Legends: Back when I was younger, I played the terrible PC port of the game and wound up hating it. Heck, I remember I had to play it with my sister, since the keyboard controls for turning and strafing where such a mess, it became a two-person effort! But since it's so beloved, for some reason, I decided to give it another chance.

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 - Mutant Nightmare(DS) : Just a reminder that Turtle Month is a thing, and a thing that I want to keep yearly, and this is just further confirmation that it is a thing that is happening this November.

  Legacy of Kain - Soul Reaver: Yet another game of which I played the PC port, but this time around, it was a decent port. I don't remember how I felt about it exactly, part of me thinks I didn't like it too much... but I have a ton of memories about it, so I must've liked it! Plus, I even bought the sequel. Anyways, Soul Reaver.

 Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain: And just as I plan on playing Mega Man, a ton of Mega Man at that, this year, I also plan on playing the entirety of Legacy of Kain. It's funny, I just wanted to play Defiance, originally, since I remember loving it, but as I read about it, I noticed just how rich the Legacy of Kain mythos are, and now I want to experience it first hand! And, by the by, Soul Reaver 2 is on its way, so soon, soon I will delve into Legacy of Kain!

Review #219: Haunting Ground

 Give me that Azoth!

 Haunting Ground is a Survival Horror game that borrows more from Clock Tower than Capcom's own Resident Evil franchise. It's a rarely talked about game, and a game that has risen in price, though luckily not as high as Rule of Rose.

 The game pits you as Fiona, a youth that finds herself in a mansion inhabited by some odd fellows, after waking up from a car crash. Eventually Fiona finds Hewie, a dog, and both of them become unlikely allies as they attempt to escape the premise. The story is alrightish, but it's the characters that really stand out. The game features 5 different 'stalkers', enemies that populate the mansion and will attempt to kill Fiona, and most of them are pretty creepy and have their own motives, quirks, attacks and music. Fiona is a bit bland, displaying little more than fear throughout the whole ordeal, but the supporting cast make up for her. All that said, I felt the initial half of the game is a bit stronger and scarier than the latter half, since it starts getting a bit more... wizardry, so to speak.

 The game nails the atmosphere right on the head. Music is creepy and foreboding, and the sound design is excellent, it's hard not to feel unnerved when you hear other steps besides your own, due to the impending arrival of a stalker. The imagery is very bleak as well, with a very grey color palette, but in this game, it works. All that said, this is a Japanese game, so they just had to go full Japan with the fanservice. Fiona's breasts will bounce everywhere with even the smallest step, which looks ridiculous and can sometimes break immersion, I just couldn't help but laugh at how dumb it looks. Plus, the game tends to focus on her breasts during cut-scenes, which is hard not to notice, and almost every unlockable costume offers some sort of fanservice. It's the only blemish to the otherwise phenomenal atmosphere the game can create.

  Gameplay is pretty straightforward, you have to explore the Mansion and find items in order to solve puzzles, simple. Some puzzles involve Hewie, who can enter holes that Fiona cannot, or having him stand on platforms. Hewie is controlled with the Right analog stick, you depending on where you tilt it, you can praise him, scold him, tell him to stay in place, order him to attack or follow you. Issuing commands is very simple, though it can get some time getting used to it, for instance, if you tell Hewie to stop before he stops himself, when ordering him to stand on a platform, he will eventually move, which frustrated me to no end and I had to learn that the hard way during a certain end-game puzzle. Speaking of puzzles, there were a couple that were perplexing, to say the least. Off the top of my head, there was this one puzzle... You come across a room that has a torch on a wall, and flammable crates nearby, and eventually you'll come across a Candlestick, that the description happens to mention it being 'unlit'. Logic would dictate that you'd have to use the candlestick on a torch in order to make the crates explode. Wrong. You have to wander around until you trigger the Stalker, and then, with the candlestick in your possession, walk below the torch, so that Fiona will finally decide to light that candlestick and make the crates explode.

 If that was all there was to the game, it'd be pretty easy, but you'll have to deal with the different stalkers. You will randomly come across them, or sometimes get into a cutscene that'll trigger their apperance. Regardless, Fiona by herself, can only use a weak kick, a tackle(That consumes stamina) or throw special, limited, items that you can find. Your main source of damage will be Hewie, but he too can get hurt, and eventually knocked out. Stalkers also scare Fiona, and if she gets too scared she'll enter 'Panic Mode', which makes her run by herself, and won't let you enter the sub menu to equip or use items, plus, the screen gets very blurry. Combat, is more often than not, the last thing you'll want to do, instead, you'll want to run away and either hide from the Stalker until it goes away, or outrun them through the different rooms in the Mansions. You also have to keep in mind that Fiona has stamina, and eventually she will slow down to a walk, so you have to mind where you are going. To be honest, I only died once or twice to the Stalkers, and only to the third one at that, outrunning the Stalkers was pretty easy.... which means that eventually I came to think of these chases as a bit of a nuisance. I just wanted to finish the damn puzzle, but if a Stalker is close by, you can't use items or trigger switches, which made me more annoyed than anything else. Maybe it was just me, but the chases didn't really scare me, the moments before the chase did, and the fact that they'd sometimes appear before I could solve the puzzle after figuring it out annoyed me more than anything.

 The game looks gorgeous, animation is smooth and character models are gorgeous. The Mansion itself houses a ton of different, creepy areas. There's few enemies, but the first two stalkers and the second-to-last are amazing, amazing in the scary way, I enjoyed their quirks and what not. The other two are alright, but can't match these other three. The music, while not particularly memorable, is scary and fits the mood of the game perfectly, and so do the many different sound effects. Everything just works together to make a very scary game. Oh, and loading times are almost 0, which is amazing.

 I liked Haunting Ground. Survival Horror is not a genre I'm particularly fond of(Which is weird since I love everything horror), but I really grew to love the game. There's a few things I don't agree with, like the fan service, some of the puzzles or the direction the game takes after the second Stalker, but none of those really turned me away.
 8.5 out of 10.

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