Now Playing: Earth Defense Force 2025

EDF! EDF! EDF!

 So, Earth Defense Force USA was my introduction to the series, and it turns out fans consider it a 'bad EDF game'. Well, I just started this game on co-op, and what can I say, I think I liked the other one a teeny bit more.

 So, I'm playing the Fencer, I would've gone with the flying class, like I did in the other game, but I think the class looks ridiculous in this one, so I opted for the badass guy in a suit, plus, I knew it had melee weapons... and well, it's slow as molasses. My sister is co-oping as the Ranger, and I need to equip the hammer with the dash in order to keep up! Now that I think about it, characters definitely seem 'deeper' than in EDF USA.

 What I liked:
- The different classes, different weapons, how you can have different load-outs
- The idea behind the game.
- Couch co-op.
- Gameplay is fun, very arcadey, which I enjoy a lot.

What I didn't like:
- Performance issues galore. The framerate dips. Constantly. I wonder if its better in Single player?
- Loading times are long.

Review #275: Castlevania Chronicles

 Because sometimes, just sometimes, games hate your guts.

 Castlevania Chronicles is the remake of a remake. Sort of. Y'see, Castlevania for the X86000 was sort of a remake of Castlevania NES. Sort of. Castlevania Chronicles is a compilation of both the original X86000 game and its remake.

 You see, Castlevania X86000 was brutal. It IS brutal, and it is available in all of its original glory as 'Original Mode'. But the game is incredibly hard, due to enemy placement, stiff movement and the amount of damage you take. 'Arrange Mode' is the remake, which not only offers a new sprite for both Simon and Dracula, but it allows you to customize the difficulty setting: Easy, so that you can cruise through the game, Normal, which is about as hard as Rondo of Blood and Hard which is almost as hard as the original game on the X86000. But you can further customize the challenge by disabling the timer or upping your life stock to 5. If you ask me, 'Arrange Mode' is the best way to experience the game, Original is way too hard and the pay off isn't worth it. And that's about all the differences between both versions, from now on, everything refers to both games.

 Chronicles is what I like to call a Classicvania, a 2-D sidescrolling platform game. Simon, the hero, can jump, attack with his whip or use sub-weapons on his way to Dracula's abode. It sounds simple and it is simple, X jumps, Square attacks. Unlike most Classicvanias, you can actually adjust your jump trajectory mid-air, as well as whip downwards from the air. But that's as agile as Simon gets, y'see, the game is ridden with ladders, which you climb up or down by holding, well, up or down on the D-Pad. While on stairs you can't jump off them, so you are basically a very slow, huge target for mobile enemies. Even better, holding up and pressing square uses your sub-weapons, so its entirely possible to mess up and consume your sub weapon energy by accident. And like a ton of vintage platform games, there's quite a few pixel-perfect jumps standing between and Dracula, so good luck.

 To add insult to injury, level design isn't the best. Sometimes. particularly on vertically scrolling levels, enemies will pop up from the sides without even giving you a chance to dodge them, and there's a few obstacles that will catch you off guard the first time. The funny thing, all of these will either drive you away or, if you are an oldschool gamer, entice you to try it out. Yes, the game is Nintendo-hard, and if that's your jam, this is your game.

 When it comes down to it, Castlevania Chronicles is a good, but dated game. It's definitely not a game for everyone, and not worth the high price it commands now a days. But hey, you can buy it off PSN if you are feeling for a hardcore, oldschool platform game. And if you are just curious, there's always easy mode.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #274: Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden

 'nother year, 'nother Dragon Ball game.

 Every console, but the Vita it seems, must have a Dragon Ball game sometime during its lifetime, and now it's the 3DS' turn, at least outside Japan. It's ArkSys', of Blazblue and Guilty Gear fame, turn with the franchise, after their SuperSonic Warriors release, to develop the latest entry in the 'Butoden' fighting games.

 The game offers a purely offline experience, although Japan got an update with a Training and Online Modes, but seeing how it's been a couple of months since its release... It's safe to say we ain't getting it any time soon. As for the modes, there's Z Story, a 8-part story mode made up of 10 fights each, seven of the eight chapters follows a different 'What if' scenario, the 8th being a loose, and bland, retelling of the major story arcs of the series. Then there's 'Adventure Mode', which is an all-new what-if story... which is pretty boring. Fights in Adventure Mode have different goals to complete in order to unlock assist characters. Lastly there's 'Extreme World Tournament' which... isn't a Tournament mode at all, but rather another 'story'-type mode, fights are always the same! Lastly there's VS CPU or local Players. It's pretty barebones, but for a portable fighter I guess it's alright, although the absence of a Training Mode is unforgivable.

 First lemme get this out of the way: The game falls on the same pitfall most bad licensed fighters do: It's balanced according to the series, rather than strive for a balanced character roster. This means that, say, Raditz or Kuririn are gonna have a baaaaaaaaad time against characters like Beerus or Super Saiyan God Goku. It tries to make up for it by having the tired 'Dragon Power' system, allowing you to make a team of up to 3 playable characters, or 1-2 playable characters and up to 4 assist characters, as long as the sum of the 'Dragon power' of your team doesn't exceed 35. You could fight battles one-on-one, but the game encourages using Assist characters, as a matter of fact, certain characters have moves than are uncombo-eable, as far as I noticed, unless you use assists, which I think is a terrible design choice for a fighting game.

 Characters play more or less the same when it comes to normals. Y is Weak attack, X Strong attack, A varies depending on the character and B is used for dodging. Holding the L button and pressing Y or X lets you use Ki-consuming special moves, while R is used for dashing/canceling at the cost of some Ki. In a bizarre twist, ultimate moves are actually combos. Y-Y-Y-Y-X-A is how you use them. Lastly, characters share the same 'combos', while they have different properties, they are all executed the same. Which is to say, X-A is a blast attack, Y-Y-Y-Y-Y knocks back, Y-Y-X is a knock up, etc. To be honest, I felt the mechanics where a bit limited, and some movesets where a bit uninspired. I did like the fast speed of the overall game, and it does feel different from all the other ArkSys fighters, which is I complaint I usually have with their games: They all feel the same!

  Then we come to the character roster. Dragon Ball fans are so spoiled that they will usually whine if there's less than 60 characters. Listen, animating 2D sprites is hard, much harder than animating 3D models, so a 2-D fighter having a small character roster is more than understandable. Extreme Butoden features 25 characters, which is more than what most new 2-D fighters offer. That said, there's plenty of clones. Goku, Super Saiyan Goku, Super Saiyan God Goku and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku are basically the same character, barring the special moves. And Goku shares some moves with Adult Gohan, with whom he shares a body, as well as Bardok, with whom he shares a head. And what's up with having four Gokus? And why have Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku if they wouldn't give us playable  Gold Frieza or Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Vegeta? Since different forms are basically clones, it makes you wonder. And what's up with Bardock? Why give him a spot over more important characters like, say, Vegeto, Yamcha or Tien? Basically, I don't have a problem with the size, or even the clones, but rather some of their picks.

 The graphics are, easily, the game's biggest selling point, sprites are beautiful, and are better animated than even some of ArkSys own Blazblue sprites. If you've followed the Butoden series since the SNES games, you might even notice some familiar moves, like Piccolo and Teen Gohan's fast speed aerial kicks! And while theres 'only' 25 playable characters, they made animated sprites for over 100 characters, and they all look amazing.

 Alright, so Extreme Butoden is hardly a game to write home about, but, BUT I think it's a more than decent foundation for a second game/update. I believe that the game suffered mostly due to the developer playing it to the 3DS' strengths, which is the reason we got simple, limited combat mechanics. I'd like to see an update for the game, but on home consoles,  with the added benefit of real joysticks, and we could get some more characters. It could've also used real different modes, like a Survival mode or a true Tournament Mode.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #273: Silent Hill 3

 When humans don't behave like humans.

 I've been aching to give Silent Hill 3 a spin, for whatever reason, and now I did and... I'm pleasantly surprised.

 Firstly, you will not play this game for the story. I mean, the set up is alright, you play as Heather, who gets warped into 'the otherside' after a meeting a detective. In this 'Otherside' freaky things are out to get her, and soon she'll be involved in a cultist group's agenda. Y'know, it's alright. But... Humans don't behave like humans. Heather and the other NPCs, all behave very weirdly. Heather and the Detective come across all these creatures and they only trade a few words about it and then go merrily on their way. Or a character confronts another, and when they tell this character ' X was kidnapped and brainwashed!', the other character, instead of answering something sensible like 'Your cult is evil and X is better off now!' answers... 'X was happy!'... so what if X was happy? X WAS KIDNAPPED, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Yeah... character interaction isn't very realistic, which put me off a lot. And what about this 'Otherside'? Like, every place that Heather goes into is completely devoid of any human life, seems abandoned really, so when does she get into 'the Otherside' really? I dunno, I feel the game could've explained some things better. Silent Hill 4 gets a lot of flak, and I'll admit that some of its characters' interactions were a bit iffy as well, but it was much more believable than this game's. Just saying.

 But when it comes to videogames, it can have the stupidest, most nonsensical story out there, but as long as the gameplay is tight, I won't care. And this game passes with flying colors. Firstly, there's two forms of movement: 2D or 3D. 2D gives you tank-like controls, strafing and a backstep. But 3D gives you more natural controls(Left is left, instead of making you rotate), but the freedom of movement comes at a cost: No strafing or backstepping. It's a fair trade off, and it accommodates both players that are fond of tanklike controls or the other type. The game also offers separate difficulty settings for both combat and puzzles, further accommodating for players of different skills. Very nice. I played the game on normal(Both for combat and puzzles) and they were just fine, and read about some of the 'Hard' puzzles and... they can get pretty challenging.

 In order to deal with the many monsters that assault Heather, she can use both close ranged weapons and a few fire-arms. Combat is a bit stiff, like most Survival Horror games, y'know the deal, slow swings, short range and scarce ammo and healing supplies. That said, melee combat is more viable than on most games of the genre, as a matter of fact, Heather can block incoming attacks for reduced damage. There's another type of... danger. Cliffs. For whatever reason, Heather can fall to her death off the edges of, well, any kind of surface with edges. I found it a fairly needless hazard, that will kill you mostly out of being distracted than it being a real danger, which I found to be kinda dumb.

 The camera can be a bit of a pain sometimes. Some areas feature fixed camera angles that messes with your controls(Although I'm guessing it doesn't if you are using the Tank-like settings) if you are moving while the camera transitions. Furthermore, while you can adjust, on areas without fixed camera angles, the camera behind Heather with L2, sometimes the camera will try to snap back to where it was before. It's specially annoying if you spot an enemy, you let go of L2 and the camera snaps in front of you while the enemy approaches you! And sometimes getting Heather to interact with the right item on the environment that you want can be a bit tough, particularly when interactables are close together or on top of each other, but these happens almost exclusively on 'safe spots' when trying to get Heather to interact with the save spot or pick up a certain item, so it's just a minor inconvenience.

 I liked Silent Hill 3, I really did, but I really don't understand how Silent Hill 4 gets so much flak when it's so much better than SH 3. The story is better, character interactions are better, gameplay is better. And in no way am I even trying to imply that Silent Hill 3 is bad, au contraire, it's fantastic, but Silent Hill 4 is every bit as good, and in my opinion even better, than this one, yet it's the one called the black sheep of the series. But I digress, Silent Hill 3 is a great, if a bit short, game. It can be challenging, unsettling, and even creepy but it offers enough customization in its difficulty and controls to appeal to players of varying skills.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Silent Hill 3

 It's goooooooooooooooooooooood.

 Lemme use my usual preface when writing about games like this... 'I am not a fan of survival horror games but...', but, Silent Hill 3 is badass. I just defeated the first boss and I think I'm in love.

What I liked:
 Heather. Heather is badass, and looks amazing. Who'd think a Japanese developer could resist pandering to the lowest common denominator and fanservicing the hell out of her?
 The setting. It's creepy, really creepy. I like it.
 Controls. Don't like tank-like controls? You can use more traditional controls at the cost of strafing and the backstep. A fair trade-off methinks.

What I didn't like:
 Fixed Camera angles. Alright, so I understand that it kinda comes with the territory, but I can't for the life of me enjoy being attacked by enemies off-camera. Particularly when Heather is looking straight ahead, so she should be able to see the threat, which in turns means I should be able to see it.
 Sloppy selection. This one is hard to explain, but basically, Heather's head turns into items of interest. Fair enough, but sometimes, for example, there might be a Save Spot above, say, an examinable bed. Sometimes it's hard to get Heather to interact with said Saves Spot instead of the bed.
 Enemies wait for nobody. Where you mashing X to get through a description and accidentally toggled it again or something? To bad, you can't move until you are done with it, but the enemies can and can attack you while you are defenseless. Not cool.

Archile's Grab Bag: Start o' the Year Edition

  A new year means a new package which means more games. And more games mean more 'This is what I think now of this game' sentences for kicks and giggles.

  Clock Tower 3: Ever since Jim Sterling(', son') some time shared a clip from the game, I've been wanting to try it out. It's similar to Haunting Ground, since that was meant to be a sequel to this game, so that's a plus, since Haunting Ground was awesome.

  Freedom Wars: I don't understand why this game dropped so soon in price, since it seems to be one of Vita's finest. It seems to have a Gods Eater aura, being very Anime and with the post-apocalyptic setting, but without needing to resort to fanservice, so I've actually got high hopes for this one.

  Valkyrie Profile - Lenneth: I loved VP on the PS1, but that version has gotten waaaay too expensive, and the PSP port is, while definitely inferior, not a bad, cheap alternative to playing VP, so why not? I never actually finished VP, which is something I plan on correcting.

 YS - Memories of Celceta: I've been a fairly casual YS fan ever since I played a PC YS game. As a matter of fact, I think this game is a remake of that remake(There's a particular game that they've been keen on remaking forever. Maybe I'm wrong). I dunno, this seemed quite decent..

 Silent Hill 3: I understand that I am putting my 'I hate Survival Horror games' reputation in jeopardy, but Silent Hill 3 is a game I've always been curious about. I probably shouldn't mention that I'm kinda interested in dipping into Silent Hill 2 again.

 Castlevania Chronicles: Another game I used to love back when I was younger. Truth be told, I've always been a fan of pink haired Simon, he looks, surprisingly, badass, in his tight, revealing leather one-piece.

Month Overview: December 2015

Games played in December:

Senran Kagura - Shinovi Versus                              5.0
LocoRoco 2                                                              7.0
Soul Sacrifice                                                           7.0
Bioshock                                                                   8.0
Bioshock 2                                                                8.0
Binary Domain                                                         9.0
Puzzle Quest - Challenge of the Warlords               7.0
One Piece - Unlimited World Red                           5.5


 With holidays comes.... more games to play, I guess? There was decent variety, and one of the best games in the year, and one I adored, Binary Domain, made it's late appearance. I also started playing Dragon's Dogma, but very sparingly, so I've barely made a dent in the game, heh!


Runner-up:

 Better late than never, eh! Bioshock 2 finely tuned Bioshock's combat, which was already fine in its own right. It's funny because, as far as I know, the Bioshock series pride themselves in their story, but this game's story was pretty weak... however, the improved gameplay made up for that, making it an altogether slightly more enjoyable game than the first one.

Winner:

 I can't stop singing this game praises, for I instantly fell in love with it. I've already talked a lot about it, so anymore would just mean repeating myself.