Review #230: Jeanne D'Arc

 Viva la France.

 Jeanne D'Arc is an Strategy RPG for the PSP developed by Level-5. It's a loose retelling of Joan of Arc's crusade against the English, Japanese style!

 The story might be based on Joan of Arc's story, but it's set in a widely different universe, one in which Elves, Dwarves, Beastmen and monsters coexist alongside humans. Yep, this isn't your average history lesson. That said, it does follow Jeanne's crusade against the English in order to protect France, except that in this version she gets to have super powers. Mainly the five Heroes, men chosen by the armlets, which are granted special powers and allowed to don a magic suit of armor, henshin a-go-go baby! As for how the story develops, I felt it starts a tad dull, but gets better and better as it goes along, and it can get pretty dark. The characters themselves don't get much development though, but they do get a couple of lines here and there to add some individuality to each of them.

 The game is a fairly standard Strategy-RPG, each battle has two bands, yours and the enemy, and in your turn you can move each of your units, after your turn, the CPU does the same with its units, fairly straightforward. Attacking a unit from the sides or behind confer the usual attack and accuracy bonuses, so positioning is important. In fact, the game's unique mechanics are based around position: Burning Aura and Unified Defense. Every time you attack an enemy, it'll drop a 'Burning Aura' in the opposite tile, and if you place a character in that tile(Or if he was standing over it when the Burning Aura fell), you'll get a damage buff on your next attack. As for Unified Defense, you might think that spreading your units is a good idea, but it might not always be the case here, as leaving your units close together will confer a defense bonus when taking damage, so it's up to you to decide how you want to deal with defense depending on the enemy units.

 This is one of those Strategy RPGs in which you get preset characters and can't create any units. While each unit can equip specific weapons(Jeanne, for instance, can only equip swords), as far as skills go, each character is a white canvas. You get about 8 slots that you can outfit with gems, found by slaying enemies, that confer anything from passive bonuses, to physical skills or spells. I thought it was a pretty neat idea, and you can create some very powerful combos to decimate the enemy. Speaking of decimation, the five armlet-wearing characters get a unique gauge, and they gain one point on this gauge every turn that passes. Using this gauge they can, temporarily, transform into a super powerful state, with exclusive skills and the incredibly useful 'Godspeed' skill, that grants you another turn if you kill an enemy. I swear, having one of your Heroes massacring the enemies in just one turn feels SO GOOD.

 The game lasts about 27 hours, and finishing it unlocks a couple of extra stages. While it is pretty cool, I did have a couple of gripes with it. For starters, the game is pretty slow, not only can the framerate get a bit low, but the way battles pan out is fairly slow. Everything from going through the menus, to the characters moving and executing their attacks feel as if comes with a slight delay, which slowly adds up for a quite a bit of waiting. I think the UMD is at fault as well, as sometimes you can tell that the game is taking a second or two to load the next action. Then there's the fact that you will need to grind. For over half of the game you are limited to only 5 characters on the battlefield, and after hitting the middle point, you'll be granted up to 7 characters. It means that at least two characters will be lagging behind, even though everyone gains a little experience after each fight. As a matter of fact, there's three characters that temporarily leave your ranks, so you might be forced to use even more underleveled characters. As a matter of fact, and this might be a minimal spoiler, Roger leaves the party at some point, and he returns at a set level 47... when most of your main party should be hitting 55. Even worse, I'm pretty sure Roger was 49 when he left.... Regardless, the point stands: You will need to grind the optional battles, and it will get boring when you couple it with how slowly the battles unfold.

 The graphics in the game are colorful and detailed. Character models employ a slightly deformed look, with big heads and smaller bodies, it's a bit off putting at first, but I got used to them pretty fast. Their little bodies hold all kinds of little details in the armors and faces, which I really liked. The game also employs some gorgeous anime cut-scenes every now and then, and they do feel like a treat. Music, as expected of an RPG, is really good, with a particularly memorable main theme. There's not a whole lot of voice acting, but what little there is is pretty good, everyone has fake french accents which I thought was endearingly amusing.

 Jeanne D'Arc is not the best Strategy RPG I've ever played, but it's pretty good. I loved being able to customize my units with the gems, and while it took me a while to get hooked on the story, once it gets good, it gets really good. The slow-pace of the battles did put me off a couple of times, the reason I took so long to finish it was that sometimes I'd get bored of grinding, either for experience or skills, so I took breaks from it. Still, when it's at its best, it's really good, and at its worst it ain't all that bad.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Legacy of Kain - Defiance

 Time to finish the fight!

 Ah! Now this one I did finish, and I loved it. I really don't know how I made heads and tails out of the plot, considering I hadn't even defeated Soul Reaver 1's first boss, but I clearly remember having a blast playing it.

 But I digress, what's new? Everything. The moment you start playing, it's like everything is set on Turbo. Everything moves much more smoothly and swiftly. Even things like crossing metal barriers, which used to take 3-5 seconds, now it takes a second at most. I like the speed, I like my games fast after all. It's funny how much it borrows from DMC, but can you blame it? Still, the combo system is, or at least so far, watered down when compared to it, but it's still a huge step up from every other LoK game. Visually, it seems like environments took a hit? I think the textures aren't as detailed? I'm not sure, but on the other hand, the character models now look amazing.

 But the most important thing? After two games, it's back to Kain, and god, has he evolved. He looks like a proper badass, and fights like one as well. I remember them, Raziel and Kain, having mostly the same abilities, but at least the combos look different. Kain has powerful yet swift slashes, unwavering in his posture, while Raziel's slashes in a more acrobatic, loose way. I dig it.

 Not gonna lie, as much as I enjoyed every other game, sans Blood Omen 2, this is the game I've been looking forwards the most, and after playing the short, introductory Kain chapter, my hopes for this game are higher than ever. Hopefully it proves to be the definitive Legacy of Kain game that I remember.

Review #229: Soul Reaver 2

 History abhors a paradox.

 Soul Reaver 1 ended on a cliffhanger, and luckily, it was very well received by the press, back in the day, so a sequel wasn't so much of a 'if' but a 'when'. And so with the shiny new technology that the PS2 offered, Soul Reaver 2 came to be.

 The game picks up exactly where the last one left off. Actually, it recreates the final moments of the last game, which is quite amusing to see the last exchanges between Kain and Raziel, but now with a higher polygon count! While the last game was a story about revenge, Soul Reaver 2 is about time travel. Time travelling Vampires and Wraiths, doesn't get any better than this. It's hard to talk about the game's plot without spoiling the last one, or this one, but needless to say, the story is fantastic, and the dialogue is incredible. To be fair, the story can get pretty convoluted, and you may end up asking yourself more questions, but with a little legwork(Internet), you can make perfect sense of it. And by the by, there's no point in playing Soul Reaver 2 without playing the first, you will get lost, and a lot of the beauty of the series' lore will be lost on you.

 Soul Reaver 2 is an almost-entirely different beast than the first one. While Soul Reaver 1 was a huge game, filled to the brim with secrets and optional areas rewarding those that explored or backtracked, Soul Reaver 2 is a very linear almost on-rails experience. There are no secrets, and exploration isn't rewarded, so there's no reason to veer off the given path, not like there's anywhere else to go mind you. Amusingly, the game now finally adds a compass and the much needed map than the previous game should've had... but in this game, it's impossible to get lost or not to know where to go(Just follow the only path available to ya!) so really, there's no use for either of those.

 But hey, there are a bunch of noticeable improvements, most important of them all, the framerate. It's almost glorious 60 fps all the way to the end of the game, with a couple of moments where it could dip, but never below 30. It makes everything run so much better! And the camera is much more manageable than before, it doesn't need constant baby sitting and you can move it with the right analog stick. About damn time! The save system has been revamped as well, now you can only save at certain savespots, and you loading your file starts you back at whichever savespot you last saved. Teleporters are gone, but then again, they are not needed in this game. The way the Reaver works has also been tweaked, now you lose health constantly while on the material realm, but the Reaver can be turned on or off at will. Using the Reaver too much will make it zap your health alarmingly fast, but it's counterweighted by how strong it is.

 Much of the game is spent puzzling, just like the first game, but this time around the puzzles are much simpler. Perhaps a bit too simple, but I'm not complaining, the first one had one or two that were a bit too obtuse. Raziel retains all the abilities he gained from his fallen brethren in the last adventure, but most of the new puzzles revolve around the new Elemental Reavers: Dark, Light, Wind and Flame. As far as I could tell, they don't confer any enhanced damage in combat, but each one has different uses when it comes to traversing Nosgoth. The Wind Reaver is the only one that can destroy doors, while the Dark Reaver can activate bridges, for instance. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the puzzling, they may not have been as hard as the previous game's, but I can appreciate the creativity they spent on them, coming up with widely different puzzles than those seen in Soul Reaver 1, so it doesn't feel like you are treading old ground.

 Combat is the only thing I really disliked about Soul Reaver 2. In Soul Reaver 1, combat was simple, but it was easy to forgive as combat wasn't the game's focus. Enemies in this game aren't vampires, so you don't need to impale or burn them... but they got annoying in other ways. First and foremost, Raziel's attacks are very slow, it doesn't matter if you are using one of the many different weapons that you can find on the material realm, fact of the matter is: Raziel hits slower than any of his enemies. In the previous outing you could make short work of enemies by spamming triangle with the Reaver, not so here. Triangle is an alternate, physical, attack now, an attack that can be blocked. And enemies love to block, and there's no way for you to break their guard, besides using the Reaver(That you really don't want to use unless you really have to due to the new limitations). So, it'd make sense for you to wait until they drop their guard? Wrong. Enemies attack faster than Raziel can sidestep, and unlike Raziel, enemies can and will break your guard. It's a good thing Raziel can't really die, but the combat was dull and boring, to be honest, after the first couple of hours I just decided to skip fighting as many enemies as I could, only stopping by to recharge my Material energy. I guess it's a good thing that the game doesn't have a single Boss!

 The game doesn't look particularly well. Raziel and Kain do look fairly badass and detailed, but the rest of the secondary characters don't fare as well, not to say that they are bad or anything. Common Enemies on the other hand are a bit blander, with fairly forgettable designs and a some rather wonky animations(The 'spin on the air' animation after a 3-hit blade combo is particularly hilarious.) The world of Nosgoth is very pretty, and with the improved draw-distance, it's easier to appreciate the detail that went into designing the game's world, even if it's noticeably smaller than Soul Reaver 1's. It wouldn't be a Legacy of Kain game if it didn't have stellar voice acting now would it? The soundtrack is a bit mediocre for the series standards however.

 As far as I'm concerned, Soul Reaver 2 is an excellent game that only falters in the Combat department. It could've used a few hidden collectibles, boss fights and other elements that the previous game had, but I didn't miss those features as much as I thought I would. The change from an exploration-centric game into such a linear one might throw some people off, but the story was so good, that I kinda appreciated getting to advance the plot much faster.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Soul Reaver 2

 Huh, so we are abandoning the 'Legacy of Kain' moniker?

 I-I'm amazed. From the moment you fire up the game, the improvements are huge and notorious. The first thing you are treated to is a reimagining of  Soul Reaver 1's ending, and then... let's see... The camera, that used to be tied to R2 and L2, is now turned with the right analog stick. Genius. I remember whining about how little information it gave you to orient yourself, not anymore. Not only do you get a compass, which I suggested, but you also get a map, which I also suggested. And the framerate? Silky smooth. With new technology, also comes better graphics, and Nosgoth has never looked better(Well, maybe Blood Omen 2 looks slightly better, but it came after this one), it's very colorful, and the draw distance? You can see EVERYTHING. Remember in Soul Reaver 1 how short the draw distance was? That's a thing of the past.

 If I had one thing to complain about... it'd be that they change how the Reaver works. The previous game rewarded you with it if you did good in combat... now you can use it at any time, but you need to put it in 'cooldown' unless you want it to zap your HP constantly, plus, now the Reaver doesn't sustain your material form, so back to constantly feeding off souls. I dunno, it worked so well on the previous game, why fix what ain't broken? Also, and this is a nitpick, the graphics reek of early PS2, with slightly ugly models, and some wonky animations. The environments fare much, much better though.

 As a side-note, I know for sure that I never got out of the Sarafan Stronghold when I was younger, how do I know that? I don't remember ever getting out of it! I'm pretty sure it has to do with me not knowing how to save the game, probably, since that puzzled me at first. Turns out you can't save the game after well 30-40 minutes into the game. I'm not kidding. Which reminds me, they also changed how you save your game, instead of 'save anywhere', it uses save points, and they seem to be slightly too far apart from each other, but then again, I only came across two of them, so I might be wrong.

 What else can I say? I am completely enthralled by the game. I love the script, love the dialogue and love the delivery. I'm fully hooked by the lore of the series, and can't wait to see how it unfolds... barring the fact that I did finish Defiance back in the day that is.

Review #228: Uncharted - Golden Abyss

 More like 'Unswiped', am I right?

 So, Sony launched the new Vita, and it needed something to sell it, and something that would showcase it's capabilities.  Uncharted Golden Abyss was the answer to both questions(were they even questions?), the 'Uncharted' brand is easily a system seller, and Golden Abyss uses about every single feature of the Vita.

 Golden Abyss takes place before the very first Uncharted, which is probably for the best, and has Nathan teaming up with Sully as well as newcomers Marisa Chase and Dante. The plot is... well, it's your typical Uncharted game, there's a mystery surrounding ancient stuff, Nate is in it for the money at first and then it gets personal. The major villain is caricaturesque, as per usual, but it's the dialogue and the interaction with the supporting cast that really makes Uncharted, well, Uncharted. The dialogue between Nate and Sully is pure gold, and it's great to see Sully before he got 'too old for this stuff', Chase and Dante's is full of colorful banter while Dante and Nate keep taking jabs at each other. Needless to say, the writing for the dialogues is top-notch, up to the series standards, while the plot itself... well, it's your typical Uncharted plot, and as I said before, it's hard to break away from the formula when your main character is supposed to be an explorer.

 With Uncharted on the Vita you get the usual third person shooting and platforming the series is known for. There's a fair amount of shooting segments, platforming segments and even a few puzzles here and there, whether you prefer the shooting or the platforming, I think there's enough here to satisfy both. Now then, there's a few things I liked and a few I disliked about this particular entry, both tied to the new buttonless controls. Every optional feature is OK in my book. You can aim with the right analog stick or by moving the Vita itself, and believe it or not, moving the Vita actually makes precision aiming a bit easier, to fine tune your aim after using the right analog stick. You can also swipe your finger across parkour obstacles to have Nate do them by themselves, it's amusing at first, but I stuck with the buttons for the most part. You can also tap on the back of the Vita to climb ropes, instead of using buttons, which I didn't care for, but it was optional, so I didn't mind. Another cool thing, is that the game has a ton of collectibles, and many of these have touch based mini-games. Like rotating and object and cleaning it by swiping it, or rubbing charcoal over paper, and even a couple of literal puzzles, in which you have to rotate and accommodate the pieces, which is cool, because they are optional. All in all, I'd say this is the Uncharted game with the most collectibles of them all.... but then again, Uncharted 1 and 2 rewarded you with points to unlock cheats, there's no such thing in this one!

 But then there's the mandatory gimmicks. While walking over planks, Nate will most likely lose his balance, requiring you to tilt the Vita sideways to regain it. It wouldn't be an Uncharted game if it didn't rework the melee, and on this fourth iteration, after pressing Square a bunch of times, a touch-based QTE will take place. This was annoying and I could've done without. Also, during some platforming sections Nate will lose his grip and... yes, Touch-based QTE. There's another segment, only one thankfully, that has Nate drop through falling rapids, and you have to move Nate by tilting the Vita. Then there's the much-talked about moment in which you have to hold the Vita against a light source to make letters appear on a parchment. Yeah, it's cute, but say you are on a car, at night, playing... now you can't advance in the game because there's no flippin' light source strong enough nearby! And grenades must be thrown by touching the screen, but this I can forgive since they probably run out of buttons, heh! I'm sure that some people won't mind all of these, but I did. This is supposed to be a handheld game, a game you should be able to play anywhere, but forcing you to tilt around the Vita like a dolt doesn't sound to me like something I'd want to do in public. Everything optional about touch controls is great, but when they become mandatory, that's an issue, at least as far as I'm concerned.

 As far as the game itself goes, it's a blast. It lasts between 8-10 hours, which makes it pretty lengthy. The set pieces aren't as amazing as, say Uncharted 2, but that's not to say that the game doesn't have exciting moments. A lot of the shoot outs are very intense, with some great level design. There's also some great platforming segments that keep the action going even though bullets aren't flying... most of the time. It also keeps the series' trademark bullet sponge enemies, makes you wonder how they can keep moving after having 5-6 bullets encrusted on their bodies! I also suffered a few moments were Nate just slipped out of my control into his death, which once again, kinda comes as a given with Uncharted games. One point of contention is that there's much extra stuff. All the collectibles are neat, and many have descriptions which tie up into the game's story, but there's no cheats, unlockables or multiplayer mode. As if I haven't made it clear, the game is pretty much in-line with the rest of the series, the scope may be a bit smaller, but it's as faithful to the franchise as possible.

 Golden Abyss is gorgeous, plenty of times I found myself, mouth agape, in awe at the beautiful environments and vistas. It's a beautiful game. While the textures aren't as great as Uncharted 1's, I'd say the character models look even better. The polygon count is definitely smaller, but at least they don't look as if they were made out of wax. Music and voice acting are up to the game's usual standards, it sounds just as good as any other Uncharted.

 The most surprising thing about Uncharted: Golden Abyss is that you wouldn't be able to tell that it wasn't made by Naughty Dog if you weren't told so. Everything about the game reeks of quality, in which it matches the main entries of the series. That said, while I feel this is a great game... I also feel like it's not a good portable game. Tilting the console itself, or having to rely on a light source for that one moment just isn't my thing when it comes to a handheld. If I were to rank this one, it easily surpasses Uncharted 1(But then again, I disliked that one) and it almost reaches Uncharted 2.
 8.0 out of 10

Archile's Grab Bag: Turtle Month Confirmed Edition

  New package yadda yadda yadaa...

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Arcade Attack: This game's reception was a bit... bad, but I ain't gonna lie, it seems decent.

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I played a little bit of this one back in the day, it was fun, but nowhere neat as fun as the PS2 version.

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus: I think I actually gave this one a try as well, but it's so similar to the first one, on the outset, that I wouldn't remember clearly!

 Gravity Rush: The only Playstation Vita game worth having at the moment, or so they claim. It seems awesome.

 TMNT: Ah! I gave this one a go as well, the reviews were coming in and all were so good, that I just had to play it. I remember liking it, but I never got around playing as anybody but Raph, guess I didn't make much progress! Fun fact, finding this game Complete in Box is about 100 dollar hard. This one had a smashed box, but hey, it was only 20!

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I don't have much to say about this one! 'Nother day, 'nother TMNT game!

 Soul Reaver 2: Guess we are just gonna throw away the 'Legacy of Kain' moniker, huh. Yeah, it does say 'The Legacy of Kain series', but it doesn't count! Ah well, I'm looking forward to this one, I already skimmed through the insctruction booklet and it seems like they added a compass and more checkpoints, almost as if they had gone back to the past to see what I disliked about the first one. IT'S A GAME ABOUT TIME TRAVELLING AND I DID A JOKE ABOUT IT.













 And as if it were not clear enough, Turtle Month is happening again this November, and there's quite a bit of games planned for it....

Now Playing: Uncharted - Golden Abyss

 There's STILL uncharted territory, goddamn!

 It's good, IT'S GOOD. So, Soul Reaver 2 can't arrive soon enough, and Jeanne D'Arc kicked my butt(Mission 33, Roger's subconsciousness killed my spell caster), and I needed a break from studying and... and... well, Uncharted was laying by, so why not?!

 I'm on Chapter 3, and it's really good. Game looks gorgeous, the dialogue and voice acting are as sharp as always and it feels just like the Uncharted we know and love. They even changed the melee again, because changing how melee works is an Uncharted staple. This is, probably, my least favorite melee, as it involves swiping on the screen. Yipie. All the optional touch controls are fine, because they are optional, but I'm disliking the mandatory 'tilt to balance' and 'swipe to machete' moments in the game. I understand they wanted to showcase the Vita capabilities, but I could do without. To be fair, they aren't overly annoying, but if it was up to me, I would've taken them away.

 Still, it's a solid game so far.