Review #254: X-Men - Next Dimension

 So... which one is the Next Dimension?

 If there's one thing I love, it's fighting games. X-Men Next dimension was a successor of sorts to the Mutant Academy series from the PS1 era, featuring 24 characters from the world of X-Men duking it out on the then-next gen.

 The game offers a healthy selection of modes: Story, Arcade, Versus(Player), Practice, Team, Survival and Time Attack. All of them are pretty much self-explanatory, but 'Story Mode' bears special mentioning. Story Mode is made up of several cut-scenes spread out throughout several fights, while some sections allow you to pick a character, the outcome is always the same. As far as the story goes, it's pretty dull and uninteresting, with Bastion kidnapping Forge and the X-Men coming to his aide, but hey, at least it actually has a story mode. Funnily enough, only about half of the character roster makes an appearance on this mode, and even less can be picked to play as.

 The fighting is surprisingly solid for a western Fighter, and it has a few original ideas that I really liked. Your basic tools are: two punches and two kicks, light and heavy for both, blocking by holding back, a throw and a counter, not unlike DoA's, albeit it can't be used while being comboed. The game featuress aerial combos, by tapping up after popping the opponent up into the air, cancels into the supers and specials and even juggles. Sometimes I felt as if the collision detection was a bit off at times, particularly against the large characters. 

 Each character has access to about 5 different specials, spread throughout 4 tiers. Y'see, the energy bar is made up of three Segments, and while each special has a different tier, it only consumes one segment of the gauge, except tier 4 specials which consume all three segments. Say, you use a a Tier 2 special, in this case only the second segment will be spent, while the first and third segment remain intact. But there's a rather interesting mechanic, in which you can 'move' energy from the other segments into one of your choice. For instance, having all three segments full allows you to: Pull a tier 4 special, two tier 3 specials(By moving energy from Segments 1 and 2 into the third one) or many uses of tier 2 and 1 specials! It's done by holding Z on the control and then whichever button is assigned to each segment. While gimmicky, I found it unique and interesting. On the other hand, one thing I did not like about the specials was the way they were used. Usually they involve pressing A+B or X+Y plus different directions. If you are gonna have simple commands for specials like these, make them universal amongst the entire cast! It's annoying going from one character into the next, and now A+B+Left is a tier 2 special instead of a tier 4, and in no way does it help in making characters 'feel different', if that was their intention.

 It bears mentioning that the camera loves to freak out. Many times it will get stuck on walls, or even on the floor while you pull off some of the flashier movies. Eventually you get used to it, but it can get pretty bad... One of Betsy's specials is unwatchable on the ceiling stage, since the camera will always glitch. And on some of the busier stages, like jungle stage with all the water, can suffer from a bit of slowdown every now and then, nothing major.

 The character roster is fairly decent, featuring most of the then popular X-Men.There's 24 characters, 22 out of them being entirely unique, while there are two semi clones(Phoenix and Dark Phoenix, Psylocke and Betsy) and I loved how characters come in all shapes and sizes, from the enormous Sentinel, the beefy Juggernaut or the short Wolverine. Each character also has 8 different colors, although there was an off putting amount of red alternate costumes. Unlocking stuff(About 6 of the characters, and 6 of the alternate colors) can take a while, particularly the ones requiring 1900+ rounds or spending 20 hours in the game, but there's a code to fasten the whole process... or just clock 56 hours into the game.

 The game's visuals are downright ugly and there's no two ways about it. Character models are ugly, some characters being oddly proportioned or even built, while the animation ranges from really good(Beast) to very spotty(Gambit). As for the textures, they are muddy and blurry. And the CG cutscenes present in the Story Mode? Hilariously fugly. No, this is not a good looking game. As for the music, forgettable at best, I can't remember a single tune from the game!

 X-Men - Next Dimension is more than a sum of its parts. The graphics are ugly, the camera is buggy, collision detection feels spotty at times... and yet the game is a blast to play. I can also admire some of it's original ideas, like the way the energy gauge works, or the different shapes and sizes combatants come in! It's probably not a fighting game you'll want to take super seriously, but one that's fun to play.

 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Soul Sacrifice

 It's cool, it's cool.

 I love Monster Hunter, well it's not like I played any other MH game besides Tri, but hey, I liked Tri. And I liked Gods Eater Burst, so I decided it was time to play another MH Clone(Or how the Vita Fanboys would rather call them, 'Raid game').

 The concept is relatively original, you partake in the memoirs of Magusar, the Wizard that keeps you in captivity, and by doing so, you grow stronger and more powerful, so that you can eventually challenge Magusar himself. I liked how you can challenge Magusar at any point in time. I managed to break off one of the seal rings around his barrier, not too shabby!

 As for the hunting, I'm not particularly a fan, but I think I could get used to it eventually, basically, you can have two three-spell loadouts with you at any time, and are used with Square, Triangle and Circle respectively, while R is used to toggle between load-outs. I mean, I guess it's sorta nice to have these many tools available, but I also like having in-depth movesets with one weapon... still, this is just a matter of preference. Plus, I still haven't gotten access to the 'Sacrifices', apparently you can sacrifice body parts(Health I'm guessing?) for one time boosts, or something like that, so there's always that.

 What I didn't like: the tutorial, it's pretty much bare bones. Like the Saving/Sacrificing mechanic, were the boosts permanent? Turns out they are, but it didn't tell me at the time. I wish there was some sort of in-game document, since Vita games don't carry instruction booklets, detailing the inner workings of the game. I mean, I managed to get the hang of everything I was told by the third mission, but I still feel as if the game could convey information in a better way.

 Ah well, onwards, I've body parts to dispose of.

Review #253: Tales of Hearts R

 R stands for 'reimagining'. Japan, why you gotta be so presumptuous with your titles?

 While the 'Tales of' series of JRPGs is pretty big in Japan, it's not so the case overseas. As a matter of fact, the Nintendo DS had three installments of the series, which were never localized. As luck would have it, two of these games were remade for the VITA, and one of them even made it here! While I'd love to compare both versions, I didn't play the DS one, but suffice to say, stuff got taken out, stuff got added and stuff got changed, and the general consensus is mixed, so I'll have to do with the game as is, without knowledge of the previous game.

 The story pits you as Kor Meteor, or Shing Meteorite as he is called in the Japanese track, who at the start of the game earns his 'Soma' weapon, and a few seconds later comes across a mysterious girl, typical, Kohaku and her brother. People have these things called 'Spiras', which is a sort of material psyche world of sorts, long story short, Kohaku's Spira gets broken into many pieces, and Kor vows to collect them all. Eventually their journey takes them over to the moon and against a villain who meant well, but through the wrong means, and is confused and.... is a walking cliche of any piece of Japanese media. I'm gonna be blunt, the story is dull, and filled to the brim with cliches, even for a Tales game. You've got your traitor, as per usual, the girls that can't cook and care a bit too much about their figures, as per usual, the hot springs scenes, as per usual, the dumb, never-say-die main character and the power of friendship, who also happens to be the host of some powerful being, as per usual, yadda yadda. There's not a single original or remarkable plot point to talk about, with some things being a bit too familiar to Tales of Graces... I'd say this is the anime-est the series has EVER been, with those all-so familiar Japanese lines you've heard hundreds of time before, like 'I HAVE MY FRIENDS TO HELP ME!' or 'WE HAVE WHAT YOU DON'T, THE POWER OF BONDS!', 'Humans are fools, but they are courageous and strong' and the like, so make of that what you will. Lastly, and worth mentioning, is that the game only has Japanese audio, and the translation is very... liberal. Even if you know nothing about Japanese, you'll notice that two-three word sentences have been extended into longer dialogue quips, so a lot of flavor has been added. Some characters even got their names changed, for whatever reason, like the protagonist. It didn't bother me too much, but I felt the dialogue was a bit too over-the-top and overdone for my taste.

 As with any other JRPG, the game progresses in a very linear fashion. Go into a town, talk with NPCs, accept sidequests, buy consumables or equipment and then venture into the next dungeon. Something that made me extremely happy was the overworld, it's been so long since I played a modern-day JRPG with a proper overworld, and it felt soooo good! On the flip side, it's the first 'Tales of' in a while to use Random Encounters, and while the encounter rate might be a bit on the high side, it's only really bothersome on the latter dungeons, when you are trying to solve puzzles as battles pop all the time. Leveling up in this game is fairly interesting, besides the mandatory increases to your stats, you also earn 'Soma points' which can then be spent on five different 'Soma pools', each pool increases different stats, but each pool can be leveled up, and this is how you earn different Artes(Spells or battle skills), Skills and weapons(Since your Weapon is a 'Soma', you obtain different forms of this Soma). I liked the customization, and the fact that you have to think how you want to develop each character, as there's no going back. There's a bit of a flaw to this mechanic, probably so that you don't overlevel and get the strongest skills and weapons early, the maximum level of each pool is capped by story progression, however, you are never told so, so at some point I assumed I just had to max everything in order to unlock the next tier of levels... wrong, I just had to hit the next plot point.

 Battling is the meats and potatoes of any 'Tales of' game, and I'm happy to report that it plays as well as any modern Tales of game, being particularly similar to Xillia. Basically, when a Random Encounter pops out, you are taken to a circular arena, and while you take control as any one character, the CPU will take over the other three. You can set their AI with rough parameters, but you can pop the menu at any time by pressing triangle and issue them orders directly. As for the character you play as, X is used for basic attacks, while Circle is used for TP(Mana)-consuming Artes. The beauty of the combat system is that it plays in real time, and it's very fast paced, at times reminiscent of a fighting game, due to all the comboing. Unique to this game in particular are the countering and follow up mechanics. Bashing an enemy for a while will make a blue marker appear over them, and using certain attacks on them will 'mark' them. While marked you can press Square to instantly teleport next to them and continue attacking them. As for Countering, after sustaining damage, enemies will turn red and use a souped up attack, pressing Square(Block) at the right time, will parry the attack and counter it with an attack of your own.

 The presentation is unimpressive, character models look decent, if a bit too simple, and some animations look a bit stiff, like running around. For what it's worth, the game maintains a solid framerate throughout, without any slowdown during battles, so that's a plus. As for the music, it fares as well as the rest of the game: It's decent, albeit unremarkable.

 So what's my problem with Tales of Hearts R? It IS a good game, probably among the best I have played on the Vita... but nothing about it makes it stand out from the rest of the 'Tales of' series. The story is dull, filled with cliches, and it even shares ideas with Tales of Graces, such as going to the moon, and that the 'important NPC from the moon' is green haired. As for the characters, they are cliched anime stereotypes to a fault, I think this is the very first 'Tales of' game in which I didn't like any of the characters. As for the World itself, not a single town or dungeon was memorable, it's pretty generic 'Tales of' stuff. The combat while fun, is exactly what I would've expected of a 'Tales of' game. What about the 'two styles' from Tales of Graces? Xillia's linking system? The follow-up mechanic is fun and all, but it does little to make it stand out.
 And that's Tales of Hearts R for you, it's a console JRPG on the palm of your hands, it's fun and functional... but less than impressive as a whole.
 7.5 out of 10.

Review #252: Shinobido 2 - Revenge of Zen

 Move aside, Phantom Pain. Or not.

 Shinobido 2 is a third-person action/stealth game for the PS Vita. It has the distinction of not only being the third Shinobido game, but the first one released in the USA!

 The story is terrible. At first, I thought that the reason everything was explained so poorly, and that it seemed as if I was missing some information was because I should've played the previous two games. I was wrong, I just did some reasearch, turns out the only returning character is on a support-only role. But what's the gist of it? You play as Zen, at the beginning of the game his girlfriend, Sen, is killed while Zen survives, albeit not without a scar. Early on, it is discovered that Sen is alive, she is on the game's cover after all, kinda, seems like there are these mirrors capable of creating 'mirror people', thus Kaede, San's 'reflection', was born. She has as much personality as a cardboard. As far as the main villain goes, his motivation is very dumb. The there are the three Daimyos vying for control of the land, and you must pick from missions sent by them. The game suggests serving only one Daimyo, but you are given no information about any of them, besides one line each explaining why they want control. There's the evil looking woman, the evil looking kabuki dude and the unreliable looking guy, so just pick whoever looks most appealing. Everything about the story is dumb. You shouldn't play this game for the story.

 The game progresses by having you doing missions by these different Daimyos. Basically, just complete missions until a cut-scene triggers letting you know that the next story mission is available, not that you need to tackle it immediately, as you may complete missions ad-nauseaum in order to level up Zen or Kaede. Zen and Kaede play exactly the same, but you must level them up separately, so you could potentially raise their stats(Stamina, Strength, Defense, Hook Length, Special) in different ways. There's also an Alchemy system, which is kinda convoluted to explain, but easy to use, in order to create tools out of items you may find on missions or earn as rewards. Or you can just buy them. There's a decent amount of tools, from healing items, to Shuriken, caltraps and mines, but, playing on Normal, I never felt the need to employ any item. I just let my Katana and hook do all the ninja-ing.

 Zen and Kaede are Ninja, so they're pretty nimble. They can dash, crouch and jump, which isn't very surprising, but they've also got a hook to grapple onto buildings or ledges(Which doesn't always work very well, the clinging can be a bit spotty), a cloth to glide and access to a special insta-kill move. This Special move consumes 'energy bars', but will kill any enemy(as many as energy bars you've got, although stronger enemies require more Special bars) in a nearby vicinity, without moving you from the spot(Although you can opt to stay on top of the corpse instead of defaulting back to where you were when you initiated it). Or you can just sneak behind them, or above them, and instantly kill them with triangle, your choice. If seen, you can either run for dear life, or engage them in swordplay. Square produces a three-hit combo, but combat is a bit... clunky, enemies always seem to be able to avoid your third hit, even if they got hit by the first two, however, roll around, while they block, and hit them on their backs and they won't be able to do a thing while you mash Square. It works on the last boss.

 As far as the missions are concerned, there's a lot of variety: Assassination, in which you must kill a specific target. Obliteration, in which you must slay every enemy. Transportation, in which you must take something from one place to another. Scouting, which is self explanatory. Kidnapping, in which you must find a target and carry them to the exit. Stealing, in which you must find and steal certain something. Transportation, in which you must transport a person from one place to another. Rescue, which is like 'kidnapping' but the target doesn't fight back. Duel, which are one-on-one fights, Assault in which you must destroy an Oxcart, and Guard in which you must guard one. Variety, there's a lot of it, buuuut... there's only about six different levels. The goals might be different, the enemy layout might be different, but you'll be Ninja-ing through the same, few stages all the time, so it gets repetitive anyways. On it's defense, there's 'New Game+', which also you to unlock skins, like a Bear, to put over Zen or Kaede, as well as a harder difficulty setting... but then again, it's a four-hour long game.

 Still, one of my biggest gripes with the game are the controls. For example, rolling is done by: First, Targeting the enemy(Hold L), then hold R(Crouch) and the press X+the analog stick. It would've been much easier to do away with having to hold R. Speaking of crouching, for whatever reason, the right analog stick turns YOU around while crouching, instead of moving the camera, which is endlessly annoying. While the hook predicts correctly where you'd want to grapple most of the time, so you can just press down on the directional pad, sometimes it won't come out, so you need to manually aim(X+O) and then shoot it. None of these are too cumbersome, but they do get in the way.

 I don't usually care about graphics, and it's not like I expected Uncharted - Golden Abyss-level graphics, but Shinobido 2 is a bit... lackluster. It looks like a PS2 game, a very sharp PS2 game, but a PS2 game non the less. During cutscenes there's also a ton of graphical bugs over Zaji and Zen's armors. The game could've used more 'instakill' animations, as seeing the same stab every single time gets old after a while. The music was fitting, but unremarkable, while the voice acting was passable at best, seems only Zen was decent, but even then it felt a but phoned-in.

 Shinobido 2 is a decently fun game. It has a few flaws and shortcomings here and there, but overall it's a decent game to have on the go.

 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Tales of Hearts R

Random Encounters?!

 When was the last time a Tales of had Random Encounters?! Phantasia? Nay, Destiny?! Regardless, y'know what the blog was missing? A honest to goodness JRPG, and since I'm done with Shinobido 2(Turns out it's only 4 hours long), why not? The tests are over, so....
Yeah....

 What I liked:
 The combat, feels very Xillia like, I like that.
 The leveling system, it uses a stat-spread system, but it's a bit unique in that each of the five 'pools' raises multiple stats, and 'leveling up' one of these nets you skills or Artes. Very neat.

 What I'm iffy about:
 The translation, now then, I don't profess to know Japanese, but I'm pretty sure Kor is called Shing, and I can tell, thanks to years of watching anime(of which I'm not proud in the slightest) that what characters say don't always match the subtitles. Basically, they added a lot of flavor to the translation, and I'm still not sure if I like that. It feels very over-the-top, and I usually like over-the-top, but on an generic-anime-looking game like this? I dunno...

 What I didn't like:
 The graphics, while they are pretty enough, some of the animations feel a bit... stiff. As a matter of fact, a conversation actually played out like a skit, using 2D cut-outs! I hope that they are the exception and not the rule....


 I could be wrong, but it feels like you average, run-of-the-mill Tales of game, which isn't necessarily bad, but the Vita could really use a heavy hitter.

Now Playing: Shinobido 2 - Revenge of Zen

 Tenchu much?

 I've a test tomorrow, so what's a better idea than starting a new game?!

 See the lass on the cover? She dies on the opening cutscene. And then you have to work for three different daimyo's fighting to rule the land... which sounds decent, except that you are told jack about any of them, so judging from their appearances, two of them are evil and the other one is incompetent. Fun.

 That said the game is decent, it's a decent stealth game, I think. I do feel like the controls are a bit constricting, or the grappling hook, which sounds like a great idea, except that it automatically makes your character jump on arrival, instead of hanging from the ledge. Also, why no corner stealth insta-kills?

 And what about the basic three hit combo? 1 slash and then two kicks. WHY WOULD YOU KICK TWICE IF YOU HAVE A FRIGGIN' SWORD, LIKE, WHERE'RE YOUR PRIORITIES AT?! And the third hit-dash-second kick always tends to miss or get blocked, as a matter of fact, the training grunts would choke me after the second kick, even if the first two hits connected, 'the hell!?

 All in all, it feels like a lackluster Tenchu. But then again, I only played Tenchu 3, and it's been ages ago, so it might be nostalgia talking.

Review #251: Tearaway

 You could say that I'm a bit torn about it.

 Tearaway is a 3-D platforming game made by the same people that created Little Big Planet, with which it shares some themes and ideas, however, it's a completely different affair. It also happens to be one of those games that tries to make the most of the system it's on.

 The game makes you play as yourself, yes, you. and Iota, a messenger-dash-message, as he tries to make his way towards you. Yes, I meant every word, the game uses the Vita's front Camera to display you face, and it is you who helps Iota, by using your fingers or tilting the system in order to make the trip. You'll also play as Iota by using the traditional buttons and analog stick. Occasionally you'll also get to draw things, like eyes, flames, mustaches or whatever the game asks of you, which basically gives you a small degree of customization over how certain things look! As a whole, it's a very creative concept and they pulled it off very well. It made me smile a couple of times.

 If the game has something, it's variety. Every level introduces something new. For starters, Iota can jump, roll, use a camera to take picture, pick up and throw objects, and later in the game, obtains a vacuum-like weapon that allows him to suck up enemies and use them as weapons. Then there are 'your' abilities, which can only be used on certain terrains. Certain terrains will allow you to use your fingers, by touching the rear touchpad, to move around stuff or kill enemies, you can also pull or push certain paper strings to interact with the environment. Later in the game, you'll also have to tilt the Vita in order to move some platforms!

 Each level has a lot to find, blue-presents, which translate into 'mini quests', hidden red presents and colorless objects that you need to photograph, however, it still manages to be very, very short. The game can easily be finished in 6 hours, and completion might take up to 8. It's also fairly easy, and while some trophies require you to finish some levels without dying, dying comes without any kind of real penalties.

 I also had a couple of gripes, most importantly, the camera. It has a tendency to get stuck on awkward angles whenever you jump off places the game didn't consider you would jump off. It can be very annoying. Secondly, while I loved the whole drawing mechanic, since it makes each playthrough your own. heck, you can customize Iota with premade stickers or make your own( I drew a Sword-sticker for my Iota, which looked adorkable), it lacks precision. The game can be very finicky when it comes to recognizing your swipes, and the area the eraser erases is too large... basically, don't expect to make grandiose or intricately detailed art.

 Speaking of art, the game is gorgeous. The game attempts to make everything look as if it was made out of paper, it's beautiful and very, very cutesy. From water waves, to wind lines.... everything is made out of paper, it looks phenomenal even while in motion. And the hand-drawn stickers that you are to draw makes it even more appealing, even if it looks as if it was made by a three year old(Part of the charm, really). Music is used rather sparsely, but it works to the game's benefits, what music there is is very 'rural' sounding, while not my cup of tea, it's very fitting.

 While I've mostly good things to say about the game, I must also admit that this isn't a game for me. I appreciate the creativity, and I know that there's an audience for this game, but sadly, I'm not part of it. Still, it's a nice showpiece for the Vita's novelties and I am glad I played it... even if I'm sure I won't be coming back to it any time soon.
 6.5 out of 10