Review #278: Spy Fiction

 That pesky Swery's at it again!

 Remember Deadly Premonition? Yeah, it was pretty dope. Well, Spy Fiction was a game made by Swery 65, before he went and developed Deadly Premonition. Spy Fiction is a derivative game as well, borrowing heavily from Metal Gear Solid, albeit a bit more Spy-ish.

 You play as either Billy Bishop or Sheila Crawford, two Phantom operatives task with stopping the terrorist organization Enigma, which has bioengineered a Virus and are planning to do evil terrorist stuff. Billy is stronger, so he can take and dish out more damage, but he is a bit insecure, so he can't disguise as female NPCs. Sheila, however, can disguise as male NPCs, and nobody even notices how she shakes her hips as she moves, go figure! While both characters get the same missions, they get some different cutscenes, and one mission even plays out differently depending on which character you picked. The story plays itself straight, although characters sometimes exhibit the same quirkiness that the folk of Deadly Premonition were so fond of, although this time around, it also has to do with the terrible voice acting and awkward-sounding dialogue. The game also holds a secret ending for beating the game with both characters, and rewards for up to four different playthroughs.

 At a first glance, this is a Metal Gear Solid clone, up to the 'Alarm' system 'n everything. Being stopped by an enemy will make you enter 'Alarm Mode'... unless you enter another area fast enough. While in Alarm mode, enemies will pour endlessly, so you have to hide. After a while, you'll enter 'Search Mode', in which enemies will, well, search for you.... and then comes Caution Mode which lasts about 1:30 minutes and during which enemies will be extra alert. OK, first problem with the system, there are certain doors that will get locked until you go back to 'Safety Mode', which means, if you screw up, more than 1:30 minutes WAITING until the friggin' door opens. And it's not a 'fun' waiting, it means holding L1 the whole time, against a wall(Since it makes you turn invisible) until you go from Alarm to Search to Caution and finally Safety Mode, so that the damned door will open. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds, but for someone as impatient as me, it was torture. I'd find something to read or watch as I held L1 and waited. Not fun. Oh, and even better, if you enter a new area while in 'Caution Mode', the 100-0% gauge will reset itself back to 100%, which means... even MORE waiting. Fun.

 So, it sounds like a vile rip-off, but the game does offer its own take on the formula. For starters, there's a ton more spy stuff in this one. Flares disguised as cigarettes, an electric stunner disguised as a shaver, bombs that look like band-aids! While I relied mostly on my fists and guns, I appreciate the creativity that went into designed the rest of your tools, it feels very James Bond-ish. But then again, they also took a page from Mission Impossible, by taking photos of any of the NPCs that populate each mission, you can actually disguise as them. Mind you, you can only disguise if you find containers, closets or other places in which you can enter, and if you are seen while existing, or doing suspicious stuff while disguised, the enemies will put an alert on your disguise, so you'll have to find a new one(Or wait a while. Ten minutes maybe?). And there's even a scene in which you must rappel down a wire while avoiding laser alarms... which is one of the most frustrating moments in the game, but hey!

 Moving around feels a bit stiff, particularly when compared with Metal Gear Solid(And why wouldn't you, when the game borrows so much from it!), but you can get used to it. Combat is a bit wonky though, the 2-punch, 2-kick combo is a bit finicky, so you might have to stop mid-combo in order to properly direct your attacks to your assailants. And it was never clear to me if enemies where taking damage while shot during their 'getting hit' animations or not. I know that bosses did take damage, but as far as enemies go, there was not clear indication if they were taking more damage or no. Oh, and the shooting takes a while getting used to, you either go into first person, which roots you on the spot, or hold Square, until it auto-aims and then let go to shoot. Sometimes, during the last boss battles, my character sometimes failed to aim properly as well.

 When you finally get used to the game's quirks and mechanics, and when everything works properly, the game can be a blast... however, when you are waiting for the alarms to pass by, when you are struggling with the combat, or when you try to take the story as seriously as the game wants you to... it shows just how dull it can get.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Super Mario Land(Virtual Console)

 So there's such a thing as a bad Mario game!

 Listen, I'm a huge Mario fan, and I've fond memories of playing this game on an old bootleg 32-in-1 cart. But this game is pretty bad, it's aged pretty poorly.

 Firstly, the oddities: What's up with the enemies? Moai statues? Flying Moai Statues? Egyptian levels? Sub-marine levels? Koopa Troopa's shells explode? Whaaaaaaaaat?

 Then the bad: The physics, the overall movement is fairly slippery. It's not uncommon for Mario to try to compete with blocks for their spot on the background, before being repelled backwards. Precision jumping is pretty tough due to how slippery Mario's movement is, and how awkward the jumping is, you can somewhat alter the jump's arc but it's fairly awkward to do. The best way I can explain the game's physics is that it feels as if someone who played Mario(NES) and tried to imitate its physics but couldn't quite pull it off. Like one of those amateur fanmade Mario games.

 And what did I like?... Nothing. It's not a good game, it really isn't.

Review #277: Chrono Trigger

 One of the best soundtracks of all time.

 Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of Chrono Trigger, an era-defining JRPG made by the 'dream team', Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama, with Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu on the music front. This game was destined for greatness, and greatness it achieved. Chrono Trigger on the DS is the third time the game got ported, and it received even more extras!

 In Chrono Trigger you play as Crono, the red-haired swords-man who happens to look a bit like Goku. What should've been a merry day at the fair soon turns into a trip 400 years into the past. And then into the future. And then back to the dinosaur era(with the suspicious cohabitation of cavemen). The story is pretty straight-forward, although not without its plot-twists and every character in the 7-man party gets a their chance to shine... except the mute hero Crono, who is as boring as a plank of wood and deep as a puddle. At time's it feels like Crono is just along for the ride, he is not the princess, he is not the 'destined hero' and later in the game, you don't even need to bring him alone. One of the game's novelties, at the time, was the fact that it had multiple endings depending on when you chose to tackle the last boss, with the addition of New Game+ which carries over most, if not all, of your stuff from your previous playthrough, which is a must if you aim for some of the endings. That said, one complete playthrough(All sidequests done) lasts about 20 hours, even less if you know what you are doing. As far as RPGs go, it's rather short, but I guess it has to do with the 13+ endings you can go for.

 Back in the day, another of the game's novelties where the non-random encounters... kinda. 90% of the enemies can be perfectly avoided by walking around them, but there are a few tiles that engage pre-scripted encounters, and if you leave and then re-enter the room, these tiles reset, so not 'every' encounter can be avoided. Before you earn the time-travelling ship, going back and forth the 'Middle Ages' era can be slightly annoying since you absolutely have to fight one of these scripted encounters. As for the battles themselves, they use Square's then-famous 'Active-Time Battle'. which means that enemies can act even while you pick your attacks on your turns. If it proves too challenging, and I can see how people not familiar with the genre could find themselves overwhelmed, you can just turn it off and fight more traditional turn-based battles.

 The battling itself is fairly simple and fun. During your turns, characters can either: Attack, use spells or use items. Another of the game's novelties, at the time, where 'dual' and 'triple techs', basically, two or three characters can combine their turns and mana to use a more powerful spell... which are fancy to look at, but if you ask me, eventually it becomes more useful for each character to do their own thing on their turns. But hey, they are nice to look at! The game isn't very hard, but I did feel like enemies were a tiny bit too fast, I would get pummeled while rummaging through my spell list finding that one spell I want to cast, and mind you, I am used to Square's ATB!

 As for the DS version in particular, it adds various new extras and gimmicks that further enhance this great classic. Firstly, we get all the Playstation extras, the anime cutscenes, the bestiaries and galaries, the maps, without of the loading times that plagued that version! Even better, the maps are now displayed on the bottom screen for further convenience... not that you'll actually need the maps, since dungeons are fairly straightforward, but it's nice to have. The game also sports a new, more accurate re-translation, although some people have expressed disappointment at things like Frog losing his accent... although he still speaks in a more archaic English than the rest. Personally? I didn't miss the old translation at all. There's optional touch-screen shortcuts and controls, which I never used, but you can also use the bottom screen to display life-bars and the such, leaving the top-screen, the one in which the action happens, uncluttered. This port also introduces a weird arena mini-game, which is mostly automatic, but you can raise a critter to fight battles... it wasn't much fun. Then there's a couple of new dungeons and a new ending which ties into Chrono Cross. And here's where I've got beef. I'm pretty sure that most people getting this game have already played this game before... so whose idea was it to make the new dungeons only available on a New Game+? Most people have probably finished this game before and want to play the new content, so why would you make us play through the game twice to get to it? Baffling.

 If you ask me, Chrono Trigger hasn't aged at all, it's still every bit as amazing as it once was. Everything in the game blends into a fantastic overall game: The amazing music, the simple but engaging story and characters and the fun battles/ While I wouldn't say the new features are worthy of double dipping if you already own the game on SNES or PS1, while they are rather neat, they are also completely superfluous.
10 out of 10

Now Playing: Spy Fiction

 Because I love starting too many games at the same time.

 Deadly Premonition made me love Swery 65, so I've been wanting to play some of his other games... turns out I had, The Last Blade 2 and Tomba! 2! But there's also Extermination, which I'll try to play this year, and Spy Fiction.

 This is a Metal Gear Solid rip-off, and they aren't even ashamed of it. When compared to, say, MGS 2, movement feels a bit stiffer, but it does offer its own take on the formula, with disguising and the Terminals, I guess.

 What I liked:
- Swery 65 flavor. I mean, 'Oh, poor baby' from Dietrich? Hilarious.
- Decent rip-off. If you are gonna imitate someone, might as well imitate the best. It's a fairly competent stealth game... at least so far.


 What I didn't like:
- Stiff. Moving around is fine, but when compared with MGS, it's definitely not as smooth.

Review #276: Batman Arkham Origins - Blackgate

 Whoops.

 The Arkham games have been great examples of how to bring Metroidvania games into the 3D realm, and after the phenomenal Arkham City, Warner knew that they had a goldmine on their hands, so they did anything a videogame company would do: Milk the hell out of it. While Home Console players got a half-baked 'Arkham Origins' game, on which Warner decided to focus on the DLC instead of the game-breaking bugs, and Handheld Console gamers got Blackgate, a 2-5D metroidvania not unlike Metroid itself.

 Blackgate takes place after Arkham Origins, after frustrating Catwoman's theft, Batman goes to the Blackgate penitentiary to foil a criminal take over. The Penguin, The Joker and Black Mask have taken over different sections of Blackgate, aided only by Catwoman, on a informer's role, it's up to Batman to rescue the hostages and catch the baddies. Again, It's a simple, straightforward story, with a few surprising appearances from other villain from the Batman mythos. For a handheld spin-off, it gets the job done. At least it doesn't pretend to have a rookie Batman take on the likes of Deathstroke and Lady Shiva, y'know, two characters that have defeated an experienced Batman, on a SINGLE night. And win. Still, the best part about the story is how they never explain just what the hell are Waynetech boxes doing in Blackgate, much less just why the hell do they contain 'Bat' items, like the Batclaw. The story is told through 2-D animated stills... and they are incredibly blurry and pixelated, symptoms of bad compression. And the art is very inconsistent. ranging from bad to, surprisingly, really good, it depends on the scene really.

 The game plays on a 2-D plane, although, occasionally, you get to move onto the foreground, plus, some roads twist and bend, which I felt was a neat twist on the strictly 2-D Metroidvanias. And the bottom screen houses the map, which is a godsend for Metroidvania games... if only the map was any good. Areas can have dozens of vents, or twists and bends, but the map doesn't make it very clear at all, so you'll have to rely on your memory as well. It took me little over 7:00 to get absolutely everything, and there's a ton of secrets to find, which is nice, although most of the collectibles unlock concept art. As for these collectibles, they come in two flavors: Cases and Waynetech boxes. Cases are actually Detective Cases, you must find, and examine, different objects to complete them, as for the Waynetech boxes they contain upgrades to your combat capabilities or Batsuit pieces. There's about 5 different Batsuits, and instead of being merely cosmetic, they grant you different abilities. You start with 1 of them, you can unlock another by finding its five pieces(Curiously, the one that grants you invincibility!), as for the other three, you can find four pieces of each, but which one you complete, and earn, on your playthrough depends on which villain you take out last!

 Now then, as with any Metroidvania, there's gonna be a lot of backtracking, but as you advance through the game you'll earn new gadgets that allow you access to previously inaccessible areas. Once you get the Explosive Gel you'll be able to destroy fragile walls, and once you get its upgrade, the sticky gel, you'll be able to deactivate certain mechanisms, just to name an example. And that's fine, that's the nature of the genre. And a nice little touch, is a that depending on which villain you take out last, certain events near the end of the game will change... not that it matters, since the three variations amount to an scavenge hunt throughout the game's 5 areas. Which is a drag, although at least the game tells you where to go, not that it makes it any less tedious. It's one thing to backtrack out of your own volition, searching for power ups or unlockables, that's actually fun, but when the game forces you to backtrack, just because, it gets really annoying. Oh, and be careful, try to tackle the Penguin first, at least play his area until you are forced to get into the lighthouse, as I've read about a common gamebreaking glitch that sometimes triggers if you do BlackMask and/or the Joker first. But I did ran across a glitch that made it so that I couldn't use the Batclaw to pull vents, forcing me to reload checkpoints or exit and re-enter an area to fix it. I also read about some rooms not loading properly, albeit I didn't run across it.... Yes, you could say that this game is a bit buggy.

 As for the combat, they tried to bring Arkham's trademark free-flowing combat, but it doesn't work quite as well. Sometimes, Batman's attack range seems a bit inconsistent, he may just punch the air even if you were aiming at an standing enemy. And the counters didn't seem to register properly, so I just started mashing it, and it worked fine. And I don't know if it was just me, but I had a hard time with the game's three major bosses(The Penguin, The Joker and Blackmask), I'm not ashamed to admit that I had to resort to guides for The Penguin and The Joker, since I didn't know just what the hell I was doing wrong, and, in my opinion, the game could've given out more hints on just what the hell you had to do. Pro tip: Even though the Joker will dodge your kicks if you try to zip-line against him, you have to dodge his attacks just before he hits you, with the zip-line, and the use it again, because for whatever reason he won't dodge the kick now. As for The Penguin, you can actually use the Batclaw to defeat his henchmen.

 Batman Arkham Origins - Blackgate is a very, very flawed game, but I had fun playing it. As a matter of fact, I kinda binged almost four hours straight until I finished it. I think the fact that I love Metroidvanias had a lot to do with it And in turn, since the game plays, on a 2-D plane, it's far closer to Metroid than its big brother on Home Consoles. Fans of the Arkham series are not necessarily gonna enjoy this one, but Metroidvania fans just might find something to occupy their time with.
 5.5 out of 10

Archile's Grab Bag - We are halfway there Edition

 

 A new package must be opened, because opening packages is fun.

 Resident Evil - Code Veronica X: Back when I was younger, this was the Resident Evil I got the closest to finishing. I got to play as Chris 'n everything. I'm still not a fan of the genre, but I had to take it for a ride.

 Chrono Trigger: I've been meaning to buy Chrono Trigger for a while now, the game's reputation speaks for itself. It's funny when people complain about the retranslation, since this one is closer to the Japanese script than the Wooley-fied SNES original.

 Spy Fiction: A game made by Swery 65? I gotta get in on it. The game looks like a Metal Gear Solid 2 knock off, but as long as it has Swery 65's flavor, I'll let it go.

 Rogue Galaxy: While I've never been particularly interested in this one, I ached to play some RPGS I hadn't played before, and this one sprung to mind. And after looking at some gameplay, this one might be really good.

 Final Fantasy Anthology: I couldn't care less about Final Fantasy V, but I've been meaning to own some sort of copy of Final Fantasy VI, so this one seemed right up my alley. Even when I was huge on Final Fantasy, when I discovered the SNES classic and during the era of fan translations, which was the only way to play FF V in English at the time, FF V never caught my eye. But Final Fantasy VI? This game was amazing, when I was younger, often times I would rank it up with 7.

 Chocobo Racing: 'Not huge on racing games' yadda yadda. Chocobo Racing has always piqued my curiosity, back in the day, I'd see ads on magazines for it, so I've always wanted to play it. Later I would discover that you can actually play as Squall and Cloud! Ah well, looks like a Mario Kart 64 clone.

Now Playing: Batman Arkham Origins - Blackgate

 A bit of a mess isn't it?

 So I've been doing steady progress in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and am now busy farming the Lagiacrus for the full set, and fearing that I may get tired of it, I decided I'm gonna take another game with me on vacations, but since I'm fairly impatient... I started it now, you know, took it for a test drive.

 And... It's alrightish but buggy and very very flawed. Countering doesn't seem as responsive as it is on the big consoles, nothing that mashing the X button doesn't fix, and Batman's range is fairly inconsistent, he may fly towards an enemy with a kick or... just punch the air. And then there's the glitches, the Batclaw sometimes will fail to work properly, so you have to either exit-and reenter the area, or in some cases, like Penguin's getaway or the area where you find the Batclaw itself, reload the entire checkpoint.

 What I liked:
- The same combat from the console games.
- 2-5D Metroivania, baby!
- Tons of stuff to find.

What I didn't like:
- Some of the collectibles are a bit of a pain in the butt, you have to use detective mode and scavenge the area with the left analog stick. Basically, every time the camera angle changes, I force myself to do it, since OCD and all that fun stuff.
- Countering attacks feels unresponsive, Batman's attack range is inconsistent.
- Annoying bugs.
- Low quality cinematics. Alright, you are gonna use 2D art, fine, I can roll with it. But the art is fairly inconsistent, sometimes it looks good, others... not so much. But the real kicker is how badly compressed this cinematics are! They are very pixelated and blurry, feels like I'm watching Ps1 cinematics, goddamn!
- What the hell are Waynetech stashes doing in Blackgate Prison? And why the hell do they contain the precise gadgets that Batman needs? Like, seriously.