Review #234: F-Zero GX

 Forever he will be my hero~♫

 Remember F-Zero? Y'know, that little SNES racer that featured all kinds of Mode 7 hijinks? You probably don't, while it does have a bit of a cult following, the last game in the franchise was a GBA game, and the last console iteration was the one featured here, F-Zero GX. What makes F-Zero awesome, what makes it stand out from the crowd, is its futuristic setting, as well as the incredibly fast speeds it boasts.

 The game features 4 main modes: Grand Prix, VS(Up to four players), Time Attack and Story Mode. There's 4 cups of 5 tracks each, as well as a 'super secret' fifth cup, for a total 26 tracks(There's a bonus one!). There's also 41 different racers, all with different pilots. And allow me to ramble for a bit, I'm a huge fan of character design, and this field is both to be commended and criticized in this game. The male characters are all hilariously over the top, there's Super Heroes, Aliens, Skeletons what have you, and they've the mannerisms, unlockable endings and backstory(Which can be read in the 'Pilot Profile' in-game!) and they are awesome! Female characters don't have it as good, the backstory, some of the endings and even some of the mannerisms are equally as good, but... they all share the same body with a different head, all humans by the by. All of them wear a colored top and a colored metal thong, the colors might be different, but the designs are the same. A couple of them actually bare their midriffs, but that's as different as it gets. It's a bit disappointing, since they did such a great job with the others! Lest I forget, each of the 41 racers gets their own unique theme song, and 10 different phrases for when they win a GP, how's that for attention to detail?!

 In this game, you will race your ship though all kinds of tracks, filled with tubes in which you can ride the walls, when you are riding inside them anyways as sometimes you'll race over tubes, there's gaps in the tracks, sometimes even forks that take you all over the place through hoops and loops.... Needless to say, the tracks are all sort of insane and designed with style in mind, and they are so amazing thanks to that. There are no weapons in this game, although you can ram the other racers and even destroy them, retiring them out of the remainder of the race, instead the focus is on speed. Throughout the track there are dozens of Boost pads that'll give you a boost in speed, and once you reach the second lap, you are allowed to boost in exchange for health(You can restore it by going over purple tiles over the tracks). The game can get pretty exhilarating as you reach higher and higher speeds, as you try to keep said speed, but also being careful not to fall off the track, remember, that'll retire you out of the race completely!

 Which brings me to the game's biggest issue, or asset if that's your thing, the steep learning curve. You'll have to learn how to best drift in order to keep your speed going, you'll have to learn the tracks so that you know what is coming and how to best deal with it, as well as when to or not to boost, so that you don't end up flying off-track into your game. This is a racing game that hates your guts and will kick your butt, but, but if you get the hang of it, it's also one of the most exciting racing games you'll ever play. Sadly, the game is a bit too hard for its own good. In order to unlock the fourth cup, you have to beat the first three cups in Standard or harder. Fair enough. The problem with Grand Prix is not the racers, not the rubberband AI, but the track itself. Falling of track or having your ship destroyed will cost you the race. You get 2-5 continues depending on the difficulty setting. Unlocking the 5th Cup is a pain in the butt for many reasons. You have to place first in every cup in the Master difficulty setting, no easy feat, and then you have to buy them, which more likely than not will involve farming 'Tickets'. This holds true for 10 of the unlockable racers, these can only be unlocked by finishing each chapter of the Story Mode in Very Hard. Story Mode is all kinds of insane hard, sure the cut-scenes are phenomenal and worth it, but Very Hard requires almost perfect precision. Oh, and each chapter of the Story Mode must be bought with the very same tickets, and unlocking 'Very Hard' means finishing the chapter on the other two difficulties.

 So you see, unlocking stuff is both tedious and hard. You earn tickets by placing 1st-3rd on Grand Prix Cups or unlocking and defeating Staff Ghosts in Time Attack(These only pay out one time), and these Tickets are used to buy everything. The game has a nice little 'customization' feature that lets you build your own ship. Pretty cool, but parts must be bought with the same tickets you use for Characters, AX tracks and Story Mode chapters. It doesn't matter how much you liked the game, grinding for all these tickets is not fun, and coupling it with the incredibly hard difficulty, if you plan to unlock everything, as well as the high difficulty curve... let's say that the game can be frustrating as well. Oh, and the 'Death Races' in which you had to be the last racer standing through unending laps from F-Zero X are gone, which made me all kinds of sad.

 The graphics are not as good as you think, but better than you'd expect. The backdrops are pretty gorgeous, but if you pay attention, tracks and ships are made up of pretty simple shapes. Hard to fault it, as it keeps the framerate at a steady 60 no matter how fast you are going, with 30 racers on the track at the same time. Pretty impressive. The CG cutscenes are a bit... dated, some cross the uncanny valley, particularly the females trying to be 'sexy'(Which is all of them, sadly). It's... it's creepy, particularly Jody. And the animation... well, at least they are funny and have nothing to do with the gameplay! The soundtrack is made up of Techno-Rock, and it's amazing, it's the kind of music that wouldn't be out of place in a Dynasty Warriors game, and I love it. And did I mention that each racer of the 41 gets their own theme song? And each track has its own song?

 F-Zero GX is on of the most exciting racing games you'll ever find. The difficulty curve is steep, and unlocking everything may be an herculean effort, but the game is oh so much fun, provided you can get the hang of it.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: F-Zero GX

 Vroooom

 I'm not the biggest racing game fan around, I'm no good at them and I'm not particularly interested in them. F-Zero in particular is not a franchise I'm particularly fond of, but I did play the hell out of F-Zero X on the N64. Fast forward a couple(Or about 10) years, and here I am playing the sequel, and the last entry on a home console.

 F-Zero is usually praised for the sense of speed... I played the Ruby Cup on Novice and Standard and... I can't see it. Outrun 2006, now that game was fast, but this one? It feels rather tame, maybe the next courses will offer more chance for speeding? Plus, I remember all these killer loops, and tubes you could race over... I hope they are in this one again, 'cause that sh...stuff was badass.

 All in all, not particularly impressed, but it ain't too bad.

Review #233: Animal Crossing

 In which I dig my grave and sleep in it.

 Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is a game that I've been wanting to play for a long, long time, and now I finally did and... It's most definitely not my kind of game.

 In the game you play as a little dude, or a little dudette, who moves into a town filled with adorable little animals. As soon as you arrive, Tom Nook, the town's merchant raccoon, gives you a home... and a debt to pay. Your next goal is to pay the debt, so that he can expand your house and... leave in debt you again. And that's the gist of it, there's no major story arc, no major goal, it's a pretty laid back game, with no particular purpose.

 When you first start the game, the town is randomly generated so that no two playthroughs are the same. At the start of the game, there'll only be 5 villagers, but each day a new one moves in, up to 15, and then some may move out to make room for new ones. These villagers have slightly different personalities, and may give you little errands to fulfill, delivering an item to another villager, finding them a bug or fish, etc, rewarding you for their completion with clothes, money or even furniture. As far as I could tell, these errands are pretty much infinite and randomly generated, and you may not be able to get jobs all the time, so you might have to wait.

 Besides these jobs, you can also buy a shovel, to dig for treasure and fossils, a bug net, to hunt bugs, a fishing rod, to fish, or an axe to cut down trees. You can also plant different trees wherever you want. There's another 'sidequest', so to speak, of filling the Museum with the different fossils, fish and bugs, if you are so inclined. Still, your main obsession will be making money, which is done by selling stuff, fishes, fossils, bugs or even seashells, found at the beach, or the clothes and furniture that you do not want. And then invest the earned money so that you can expand your house or buy whatever Tom Nook sells.

 That's all fine and dandy, if that's your thing, but the game runs in real time. If you skip a day, the villagers will notice, if you play at night, it will be night during the game, and if you play during winter, there'll be snow all over town. Heck, there's even holidays that you can celebrate in the game. That sounds nice, but it can put a halt to your activities. Things like fossils come in limited amounts per day, so after you dug all 3 or 4, you have to wait an entire day. Bugs go away during the night or during rainy days, so that's another activity you can't do. Heck, the first few days are pretty much a bore, you can buy a shovel, and only a shovel, on the first day, the option to buy a bug net will only be available on the next day, and the fishing rod? On the next day. Basically, the first few days really don't let you do much. Even worse, Tom Nook's shop closes at night, so you can't sell your excess stuff, so you might as well not even play the game then, remember, limited inventory space! And while you can just drop stuff on the ground and it'll stay there, it still feels like you aren't doing any progress. In this way, the game almost feels like a mobile game with its artificial barriers.

 And even then, that's about as much as you can do in the game. Do errands, fish, hunt for bugs, dig for fossils and that's it. Maybe furbishing your house with furniture and ornaments is your thing, but at the slow pace in which new items are available, or money earned... I really wasn't to invested on it. And if you look online, you can find codes to get whatever piece of furniture you want, or even the much coveted NES games, like Donkey Kong, Balloon Fight and Clu Clu Land, which were the highlight for me.

 The game has a very simple, minimalist presentation, done on purpose, which kinda works. Your characters and the animals are very cute, simple and small. Even their blurry expressions are a bit adorable. Music is made up of simple, upbeat tunes that set the mood for the game, and every villager has their own tone when they talk, and they do talk, in simple autotune-like chipmunk voices.

 I'm sure that there's an audience for Animal Crossing, it did make it all the way from the Nintendo 64 to the Nintendo 3DS after all! But sadly, for me, it just isn't the kind of game that I like to play or spend time on, not anymore anyways.
 5.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Animal Crossing

 'bout dang time.

 Animal Crossing has been called a 'sim' game, but issit really? I think 'Slice of Life' is more adequate, but then again, wouldn't that fall into the 'sim' category? Regardless, games like thesea re not my kind of games, and yet I own 3 Animal Crossing games, but I wanted to start the series with this one. I mean, this one was the first AC game I bought, but the Memory Card data required was kinda steep, so I had to get another Memory Card, and then I came along Animal Crossing on the DS(Which I didn't play) and then on the 3DS(Which I also didn't play, yet) and here I am.

 But there's a reason as to why I wanted to play the one on the Gamecube specifically: The NES games. I understand why they were removed, potential lost sales on the Wiiware store, but I think it's such a cool touch... I really wanted THIS Animal Crossing.

 I dunno how I feel about a game with no goal. I mean, I like Harvest Moon quite a bit, but even though it's rather open ended, the goal could be considered 'Become the very best farmer the world has ever seen', but what's my goal in Animal Crossing? Pay the house, and then expand, and then? Do the jobs for the townspeople? And what about these jobs, are they randomly generated or are they finite? I dunno.

 Basically, I played an hour, and I liked it, but I dunno how much life a game like this will have on my hands.

Review #232: Borderlands 2(Vita)

 Oh boy...

 Fact: Borderlands 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Fact: Borderlands 2 on the VITA almost made me hate it. Seeing how I already wrote about Borderlands 2 in this little blog o' mine, I'll just go over what makes the Vita version so terrible.

 First, the good, it's Borderlands 2 on the Vita. No, really, when the game is at its best, it's awesome. Plus, the fact that they managed to cram such a massive game on a tiny Vita cartridge is nothing short of amazing. And that's just about the best thing I can say about it. Y'see, the game made me go from ecstatic to miserable oh so many times that it ain't even funny. There's a lot of problems with the port, that I'll elaborate on shortly, but the biggest issue are the freezes. The game crashed/froze on me over 10 times before I stopped counting, the Lynchwood area being particularly terrible about it, almost, if not all, of my play sessions in that area ended on freezes, and half of my total freezes where in that area. If it was one buggy area it'd be one thing, but this can happen ANYWHERE. Admittedly, some areas are worse than others, but the issue remains, I was scared of playing Borderlands 2, as I didn't want to end up miserable and frustrated. And when you really get into the game, it's so much fun that you forget about your fears.... and then it crashes. And this is one of those games where you can't save manually, so you'd better learn to force the game to auto-save every now and then, by crossing certain checkpoints, in order to keep your progress in case the worst happens. From what I could gather from boards, other people suffered the same way I did: At the game's beginning, it's all fine and dandy, but after you cross 10 gameplay hours, give-or-take, the freezes become a common occurrence.

 Having such a broken mess is inexcusable, but the game is further gimped by other factors. The framerate is pretty shaky, and can reach single digits for a couple of seconds. Honestly, I was having so much fun, when it wasn't crashing, that I didn't mind. I was playing Borderlands 2, on the flippin' go, framerate be damned! Multiplayer has been reduced from 4 to 2 players, understandably, it's hard to fault it for this, but it's somethin' to keep in mind. Another issue are the controls, while you can map any function to any button, fact is the PS Vita doesn't have as many buttons as the PS3, so 2 actions will have to be mapped to the touch screen, and another two to the rear touchpad. You can get used to it, I did, but it took more than a fair share of grenade suicides when accidentally touching the screen. And then there's the Cross-Save feature with the PS3, you can only transfer characters one by one, so that you can't clone them, and while the PSVita version doesn't have access to all the DLC, you can transfer a character that is equipped with DLC equipment, however, he won't be able to use it. Levels carry over, even if you don't have the +11 Level DLCs, but you won't be able to level up the character.

 Then we have the DLC, oh boy... The game has been abandoned by Iron Galaxy, the guys that did the port, although it seems it wasn't their choice. This means that Borderlands 2 on the Vita only gets 5 of the DLCs that matter: Pirate Scarlet and her Pirate Booty, Crater of Badassitude, VaultHunter Pack(+11 levels) and the two DLC characters. This is all the DLC that is available and 'included'. Kinda. Y'see, even if you buy the physical version, the DLC is download only. Some people claimed that 'the cart couldn't hold all the data!' and that's a lie, both DLC characters and the headhunter pack are 100 KB each, you are downloading keys. And in an effort to discourage buying the game used, you can't buy the DLC separately, want the DLC? You better hope somebody has an unused code.

 And this is the honest truth, during the first 10 or so hours, I was ready to score the game a 9 out of 10. I was having a blast, it was Borderlands 2 on the go, it was amazing. After the first few crashes, I was gonna score it a 7, because they were annoying but not a deal breaker. After I hit the double digits I was ready for a 5-4. But after experiencing this roller coaster of bliss and misery, I decided that this is unacceptable. The game is broken, sure, at times I was relieving all the fun I had with Borderlands 2, all over again, but... it's not worth it.
 2.5 out of 10.

Review #223: Legacy of Kain - Defiance

 Time t'finish the fight!

 This is it! The big pay off, where the four previous games had led to. The final game in the Legacy of Kain series, Raziel and Kain's quests come to an end! Kinda.

 It's hard to talk about Defiance without spoiling stuff, but what really matters is that almost every loose end from previous games is explained, and the few bits that aren't, well, you can search online for Amy Hennig's, the writer, words on these things, stuff like Vorador being alive in Blood Omen 2(Which this game was supposed to answer, but had to be cut), or even stuff that happens in-game. If you've been following the series since Blood Omen, or at least Soul Reaver 1, this game will satisfy you, it gives a more than worthy conclusion to the quest of these unlikely anti-heroes. That said, there was to be a sequel that would offer further insight into what happened after Defiance, but it never came to be. But I digress, unlike the previous two games that ended on cliff-hangers, this one gives us a more... open ending, but an ending non the less.

 The gameplay has suffered a major shift since Soul Reaver 2. Most notorious, now you play as both Kain and Raziel, through alternating chapters. While Soul Reaver 2 was mostly and adventure game, Defiance borrows a lot from Devil May Cry, this is an action game with some puzzles here and there. As a matter of fact, the puzzles have been dumbed down considerably, being mostly of the 'Find X item to open Y door' variety. As a rule of thumb, Raziel's chapters tend to feature more puzzles than Kain's, which in turn make his chapters much longer. Unlike Soul Reaver 2, you are now rewarded for exploring, Health upgrades, TK upgrades and unlockable extras are hidden throughout each level, waiting to be found if you explore. The combat system now allows you to juggle enemies into aerial combos or pull and push them around with Telekinetic abilities, and I really like it. Sure, it's much more limited than Devil May Cry, but I liked performing simple, stylish combos on the enemies. Personally, I like prefer direction over any other game on the franchise... but it did need a few more work.

 Raziel and Kain behave almost exactly the same in combat, their attacks might look different, but on a technical level, it's the same. As you slay enemies you eventually unlock 5 special moves with each character, and they are the same for both characters! Regardless, my biggest issue isn't that these moves are the same, but that they are too few of them. Since the game is now focused on combat and combos, it should reward you for fighting and doing well, particularly since enemies can take quite a bit of punishment. But after you earn these five moves there's little reason to waste time fighting. Late in the game, I avoided fights as much as I could, whereas during the earlier parts of the game I was enjoying trying to come up with different ways to end my enemies!

 Throughout the game, both Kain and Raziel will earn specialized versions of their weapons, and not only are they used for puzzles, but they give their attacks special properties! For instance, Kain's Dimension Reaver makes it so that once the Reaver Gauge is full(By dealing a ton of damage), attacks will spread out throughout nearby enemies, or Raziel's Water Reaver will freeze the enemies it attacks, or the Earth Reaver makes him heavy, so he can walk on water. This sounds very promising, but it's slightly underdeveloped, take Raziel's Light and Fire Reavers, they add nothing to his basic attacks, just a different special move. Don't get me wrong, I liked what they did, but they could've done much more to make each weapon feel unique.

All that said, to say that Kain and Raziel are exactly the same is wrong. The way in which they explore Nosgoth is much different, not only are they 500 years apart, but both possess certain traits unique to each.  Kain has stronger Telekinetic powers, at first, allowing him to break weakened structures or pull enemies towards him instead of just pushing. Metal Bars are not a barrier to Kain, as he can simply turn into mist and walk through them. Plus, Water is deadly to Kain. Raziel on the other hand can swim, and his TK powers only lets him push enemies. And while he can't turn into mist, Raziel is the only one who can access the Spectral Realm.

 With the new style, also come a few quirks to get used to. The game moves much faster than before in every way, except climbing which is slow as molasses. But I digress, I really liked how everything was much faster now, both combat and exploring. A consequence, perhaps, of this is that controls feel much looser than before. New to the series are fixed camera angles, which can be a bit of a pain. There's a very few angles which are terrible and makes you wonder just what where they thinking, plus, it's possible for the camera to sometimes get confused and get stuck on very weird angles, and then you have to move around hoping that you can reset it. Not to mention that as a consequence of the fixed camera angles, sometimes it's possible to get some very unhelpful angles during fights, sometimes obscuring your position or the enemies. But that isn't even the biggest offender of the new camera, it's the platforming. To put it bluntly, the platforming in this game can be horrid. To be fair, few times is the penalty for missing a jump or what not fatal, but as a consequence of both fixed camera angles and the loose controls, jumping can potentially be the most annoying thing in the game. There were some 'simple' jumps that I had to retry over 6 times, and sometimes the issue was simply getting to the platform from which to jump.

 Weirdly enough, graphics are better in some ways, and worse in a very few others, than Soul Reaver 2's. Character models have been stylized, and they look slimmer and cooler than before. All the big players look better than they ever did. But it seems that some detail was lost, easily observed by comparing the backside of Raziel's cape on Soul Reaver 2 with Defiance's, hardly a deal breaker though. The environments are less colorful than before, but much more detailed and intricate, a fair trade off I'd say. Still, the locations visited in this game feel a bit more... mundane, or down-to earth than the more fantastic areas from the previous games. As a whole, I think the game looks fantastic, there's a couple of framerate drops here and then, but they are fairly uncommon. The music is an overall high for the series, you may recognize some of the songs that play, and they manage to set the mood for the game perfectly. Award winning? Hardly, but little to complain about. As far as the voice acting goes... It's Legacy of Kain, of course it's among the best that videogames have to offer, from the major characters to the secondary cast.

 For the final entry in the series, Crystal Dynamics sure went out with a bang. I loved the new direction they took with the gameplay, even if it needed a bit more work put into it, and the story payed off big-time. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best game in the series, but in order to fully appreciate it, it requires one to have followed the story from the beginning.
 8.5 out of 10

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