Review #337: The Legend of Legacy

 If you are tired of handholding in videogames, this is your game.

 There's something that should be known; The Legend of Legacy is the successor to the old 'SaGa' series of JRPG games, that has spanned quite a few entries throughout the years. It seems like they decided to stick close to their guns, which translates into a game the embraces its Nintendo-hard roots, but without rewarding the players with anything of worth.

 The game's story is that there is none. Yes, this is a JRPG with almost no story at all. At the outset you pick a main character from a selection of seven, while they all have more or less the same stats, they have individual weapon and elemental proficiency, hidden away from the players. Regardless, once you pick your hero, you are treated to a seconds-long introduction of their 'quest', and then you are brought into the land of Avalon alongside two other characters. Every now and then, your three characters will spout lines regarding their individual quest, but they don't matter in the overall scheme of things. There's no character development, and the individual stories are inconsequential to the game, you might even forget that each character has a personal goal. If you play JRPGs for the characters or the story, this is not your game.

 The first thing that you will learn, is that the game will explain as little possible as it can. For instance, each weapon type has a ridiculously long set of attacks, and while you do get 'Attack 31' or 'Attack 20', and maybe a short description that maybe tells you, albeit not clearly, if it will also inflict an status effect or a debuff, you won't be told what's the difference between two attacks with the same attack power, and seemingly, equal properties. You also won't be told how the elemental contracts work, you sorta have to figure it out by yourself. As you play the game, you'll obtain three different 'Singing stones', which are crucial to your success. Equipping a character with these will allow him or her to grant either Water, Wind or Fire 'contracts' to the party, which can be taken away by the enemy, or you can take it away from them by casting it again. Being under a contract provides a ton of benefits, either for your party or the enemy, and the game won't tell you what they are, besides letting you cast the magic associated to the contract. For instance, Water will half water damage and grant you a healing buff per turn. Contracts are VERY important, but the game wants you to figure it out by yourself. And while battles are turn based, turns are a bit random as well, since while speed(The 'support' stat) does play a factor in your turn, luck also takes part in the equation.

 Let me digress for a bit, nowadays people complain all the time about how games handhold players all the time, and it wasn't like that back then, yadda yadda. It's true, to an extent, since some games assume its players are idiots, however, games nowadays are ten times as complex as they were back in the day. Compare Final Fantasy 1's rudimentary mechanics to the ton of different systems that run in THIS game. Heck, even the SNES JRPGs were simpler than any RPG during the PS1 era and after. Plus, players seem to forget that they had Nintendo Power and the Nintendo line to aid them back in the day. There's a difference between handholding and telling you how the game works.

 Back to Legend of Legacy and how it works, it's a mess, but a mess that will appeal to fans of the SaGa games. Y'see, almost everything in this game is random, and I hate it. The first thing that you should know, is that in this game level ups are random, and you level up individual stats. After a fight you may get an HP level up. Or maybe an Attack level up. Using skills in battle have the random chance to 'awaken' new skills for that weapon or magic type. Awakenings are particularly hilarious, 'cause you may try to cast a healing spell, but you might awaken 'Heal poison', so in that turn you will attempt to heal poison instead of healing, and it may get you killed. Does that sound fun to you? Individual skills also level up, but these level up the more that you use them, which actually makes sense. Oh, and the amounts of health and SP that you may get from random level ups is, well, random. Does this sound like any kind of fun to anyone? It's annoying. Particularly because the game expects you to grind. You can get by just by killing any enemy that you come across, but bonus bosses, and the last boss to an extent, expect you to have relatively high stats in order to deal with their randomness. They may or may not cast their best attacks twice or thrice in a row. I mentioned how turns are a bit random, but you can level up your 'support' stat to increase your chances to go first. Although, truthfully, it's better if your characters are slow, since the last boss loves to take the water contract from you, and if the turn ends with the contract in his possession, he'll heal for 999 damage, so let him take the contract, and then use your slow character to take the contract away from him.

 And by the by, this ties into your party. Y'see, you are forced to finish the first dungeon with your starting party, but afterwards you'll be able to recruit the remaining four characters if you find them in the main town. The thing is, why should you alter your party, since, the guys you've been using have already accumulated random power ups to their stats and skills? Why handicap yourself? And while harder enemies have more chances to reward you with your random level ups, these characters are still behind your initial characters, and always will be. Another point of contention are the equipment pieces. The weapons and armor sold at the shop are more often than not crap, if you want anything worth a damn it's either: Pray to the RNG and hope good equipment drops from enemies, or pay for ships to sail for items. What items these ships you hire return with are, you guessed it, RANDOM, and to add insult to injury, you must wait between 1 to 5 hours for the ship to return with the spoils. Does anyone think this is fun? Does anyone think that good equipment being so reliant on luck is fun? What?! And even better, if you decide to buy from the shop, you can't compare the items with your currently equipped ones. Pure genius.

 A lot of people seem to praise this game for its 'strategic battles', but that's a lie, all the 'strategy' you need is to keep the Wind and Water contract on your side, have at least one tank protecting the entire party, and have two DPS characters doing the damage, and swapping healing or protecting duties when needed. To be fair, some of the bonus bosses do require a tiny bit more thought process, since it's better to spam the Wind Contract and keep the Battle Field Green in order to reduce the damage from their strongest attacks. As for normal enemies, you'll also want the Water and Wind contract on your side, as well as a tank protecting the party, until you are strong enough to take them down easily. It's funny, because random encounters can be harder than some bosses, since the RNG can screw you up and have three strong enemies spam their party-wide attacks and cream you on the spot. To be fair, the 'Run Away' function works 100% of the time, but can't be used on bosses or on a few surprise encounters, but it has two penalties: A) All enemies respawn and B) You are taken to the entrance of the dungeon. Where's the strategy if you will always need a tank, always need a healer and always need a DPS? Take Etrians Odyssey, for example, in which you can have fun making different parties, with different strategies to take down different monsters. That's strategic. This is restrictive. And random. There's also different 'formation stances', but stances can only be gained by replaying dungeons you've already cleared(After selling their maps). I don't normally retread old ground, but by the time I found this out, I didn't care, stances be damned. Plus, the NPCs that populate the map each time you re-enter it are random, and the stances they can give you are random. This game is a blast.

 Another thing worth mentioning is how the HP system works. After each battle you win, or run away from, your health is fully restored, but your SP will not. If a character 'dies' in battle, he or she will take Red Damage, and if he or she is hit while 'dead', it will incur in more Red Damage. Red Damage affects your maximum health, so once the battle is over, or if you revive them, they'll have a lower health cap. This is mended by resting at the inn, or by using some rare healing items, which can only be used outside of battle. To be honest, I thought the red damage thingie was kinda smart, but on the last dungeons, obstacles on the environments will directly deal red damage to you, which isn't very fun. Once enemies stop granting random level ups at a steady pace, you might want to avoid enemies, but there's so many enemies that it's easy to fall to these red damage traps trying to avoid them. If your entire party dies, or if one character's max HP drops to 0, it's Game Over.

 Oh, the Game Over screen... The most important function in the game, is the Quick Save option, which, apparently, WASN'T FOUND IN THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE RELEASE. This turns this unplayable catastrophe into something playable. Y'see, originally, you could only save at the main town, and dying meant you lost absolutely everything. While the 'Run Away' option is very lenient, you have to remember that the game is FILLED with unexpected boss fights. Wandering too far to a seemingly inconspicuous corner might just trigger a boss fight you aren't ready for. A boss fight you can't run away from. Imagine playing for forty minutes, forty minutes of random level ups, and then losing EVERYTHING because there was no way for you to know that there was a boss fight coming. And the only thing you learnt from all those 40 minutes was 'I shouldn't have gone to that corner'. It wastes your time with absolutely no reward. At least in games like Monster Hunter you gain real experience, you learn how to defeat the enemies. There's no know-how like that to be learned here. And this is where the Quick Save option comes into play, you can save anywhere, while not in a battle, anytime, at no cost whatsoever. Quick save made this unbearable game into a decent one. I made it a habit to save after I got any kind of random level up I cared for, since dying after playing with no level ups meant another chance to get random level ups.

 Another retro-styled issue with the game is how it progresses. Usually, you have to buy a map from the shop, and then you can enter a new area, but later down the line you'll be able to find maps, instead of buying them, by finding exits on previously explored maps. You are incited to explore ever nook and cranny, since you'll chart a map on the lower screen, which can then be sold for money. What makes it 'retro' is that there's more than a couple of times of  'WHAT DO I DO NOW!??!?!' For instance, after getting the Shadow Core, nothing in the game, not even the ever-useful king who repeats 'go explore something!', will tell you that you need to go back to the Ship Graveyard and travel back to where you fought the boss. There's not a single hint guiding you towards this place. I'd rather be spoonfed where to go next than this random, obscure crap.

 Still, despite all my complaining, despite all the baffling random design choices, when the game is at its best, it's a ton of fun. When you are exploring maps for the first time, charting the map, it's fun, the game looks great, and while your mileage may vary on the art decision to have objects, like trees or rocks 'pop up' as you come close to them, the graphics are beautiful, even if a bit underwhelming for what the 3DS can do. The combat too can be fun, once you finally figure out how the contracts work, once you start experimenting with the different attacks, and leveling up your individual attacks, or earning new attacks, can be fun. Can be fun, because when you go for hours on end without gaining new attacks, or getting into the late game without enemy group-wide attacks because the game didn't deem you lucky enough isn't all that fun. The late game is a bit tedious as well, since barring some armored-insectoid bosses in mook clothing, random battles and boss battles can take a bit of time to get through. Some of the boss battles can potentially take up to an hour, an hour of repetitive, unrewarding combat. And hopefully the RNG decides not to screw you over with an Awakening during an action you desperately needed or the boss decides to repeat its best attack.

 In conclusion, The Legend of Legacy is a game that will appeal to a very niche crowd, and that very niche crowd only. It has a very unforgiving first part, when you are figuring out things on your own, a great midpoint, when you finally know what you are doing and battles are fair, and a very tedious endgame where you are trudging through long enemy encounters and somewhat unfair boss fights. Unless you are part of the very small niche that this game appeals to, this game isn't even worth a try.

5.0 out of 10

Review #336: Silent Hill 2

 Silent Hill is the world's best therapy course ever.

 Silent Hill 2 is known as one of the best, if not the best Survival Horror game ever made, it's undeniably one of the most important entries in the genre nonetheless. The game is over 15 years old, and everyone and their grandmothers know the big plot twist by now, and even then... it feels as if it hasn't aged one bit.

 The story follows James Sunderland, who receives a letter from his diseased  wife, telling him to meet her at their 'special place' in Silent Hill. On his trek through the misty, and apparently abandoned, sans monsters, town, James will come across a few individuals who have issues of their own. It's hard to delve into why the story is so good without entering spoiler territory, but there was a lot of detail put into James interactions with these characters, heck, into his interactions with the ways in which he must proceed, that mirrors James psychological state and personality. A lot of care went into designing the monsters and environments of the first four Silent Hill games, heck, even in Silent Hill 0rigins, but this one shines the most in this regard. It's nothing short of awe-inspiring. The voice acting could be considered bad, but once you learn more about these characters, you'll see that it fits them perfectly.

 The game progression can be somewhat divided into two 'phases', firstly you explore the Town of Silent Hill, while using a map that shows you where you should go, but you are free to explore, and you should. While the town is infested with monsters, it's also filled with supplies for you to find, so going out of your way to explore every street and locale pays off in the end. Once you are done exploring and decide to go to your objective, you'll initiate the 'second phase', which is exploring the building of interest. While avoiding enemies on the street is relatively simple, buildings offer dark environments, with stretch corridors, and corners that may hide enemies, alongside a plethora of riddles and puzzles to solve. And that's the basic flow of the game, you 'clear' your objective, and it's back to town for more exploring before going towards your next objective, etc.

 Before starting the game, there's two difficulties to select: Combat and Puzzle. I played the game on the Normal difficulty, for both of them, and I found the 'combat' to be way too easy. I had healing items and hundreds upon hundreds of bullets to spare. I had over 20 healing medikits that I never even touched, heck, I didn't even used the health ampoules, I simply relied on the health drinks and I even had a few of those to spare. The Riddles, however, kinda kicked my butt. I'm not gonna lie, some of those stumped me and I had to go online to get some help.

 Controls are what you'd expect from the genre, tank-controls(Although you can change this on the options menu) and clunky and slow combat. There's a strafing feature, but the couple times that I tried to use it ended up with me taking damage, so I just forgot about it altogether. One major mechanic is the use of the flashlight, without it, James can't interact with some objects, or even pick up some items, since he can't seem them(Even if you, the player, can). But having the flashlight on will also alert enemies of your presence. It's an interesting concept, since you can sneak past some enemies by turning off the flashlight, but you won't be able to use the map in the dark, or even open some doors.

 I played the vanilla PS2 version of Silent Hill 2, but it's missing some content that was added into the Xbox and PC port, and the PS2 Greatest Hits rerelease down the line. What it changes, it adds a new prologue where you play as one of the secondary characters, which lasts between one and two hours, adds a new ending, albeit a 'joke ending', for a total of six, as well as making enemies hit harder. Honestly, I don't think the 'Born from a Wish' prologue nor the joke ending are worth it, but if you can get more content at the same price, why not? Plus, the game lasts about 5:30 hours, probably less if you know what you are doing, so having more stuff to do might not be an unwelcome addition.

 While Silent Hill 4 remains my favorite, the amount of care and detail that went into this game's story is absolutely incredible. The story and characters are memorable, and I'll admit that the game managed to make me jump a couple of times. Silent Hill 2 is a fantastic game, and deserves all the praise it gets.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: The Legend of Legacy

 It really is as bad as they say.

 Wow, this game... where, nay, what to start with?

 I know, what's the one thing I absolutely abhor in RPGs? Randomness. It's what ruined Crisis Core for me. Well, 'unlocking' skills? Random. Leveling up? Random. And you don't level up, you level up stats. Individually. Randomly. I spent like 30 minutes having my party members leveling their Attack and HP, while my main character got nothing, I was actually starting to worry if the main character would get anything. This mechanic is as dumb as it sounds.

 Oh, and there are no savespots outside of town, so if you die, you lose everything. I spent 20-30 minutes grinding, actually having some semblance of fun, when I accidentally triggered a boss fight. Turns out just because it's on the starting area doesn't mean you can tackle him, because he destroyed my entire party in one turn, and I lost aaaalll those random level ups. You've no idea how much fun that is. At least now I get to spend another 30 minutes grinding, hoping to unlock the skills I unlocked and getting my stats back. Randomly. Explain to me how did anybody think this was any kind of fun?

 Quest 64, often ragged upon and treated like a 'bad game', a game that I actually enjoy, got this right. You want more HP? Get hit, even if on purpose. Want more MP? Use magic. Want more strength? Hit the enemies with your staff. You see, whatever you wanted to strengthen, you had to use. It made sense, even if some people found it tedious. This system is tedious and doesn't make any sense, and the randomness makes it stupid and annoying. And no save spots on a dungeon? Seriously? Want to have challenging bosses on early areas? Fair enough, but at least give me a chance to save, at least midway through the dungeon, give me something, dammit. Let's compare this with a modern challenging game, Dark Souls. If you die, you are given the option to get what you lost. There's also checkpoints spread throughout, it's punishing but rewarding at the same time. This game is only punishing, with the added 'random' factor as the cherry on top.

 And there's also not enough information, how is 'Cheap shot' stronger than 'Wild Swing'? Both attacks claim to have an attack power of '2', except that one of them has a higher 'support', whatever that is, than the other.

 And what's the point of having formations if I will have to abuse 'protect' most of the time? Enemies deal obscene amounts of damage, so you need somebody to tank it with guard. Take another challenging game, Etrian's Odyssey.
A) Bosses can be seen on the map, so it's up to you if you want to avoid them, or risk trying to avoid them. This applies to FOEs, but even bosses are clearly marked on the map. So even though
B) You can only save on the town, you are given enough information as if to decide if you want to risk your progress or not. And even if a FOE catches you off-guard, unless your back is against the wall, you can try to escape from the battle.
C) You level up through experience, and upon level up, YOU, the player, decide what to upgrade. There's no randomness, you can have proper character builds deviced by yourself. And, tied to this, we have
D) Character classes, where even the Paladin, the class specialized on tanking, shines. You don't need to tank every battle, because not every enemy is obscenely strong. Formations have more freedom, there's more tactics to be had than 'Have your tank guard the other two, and the other two either attack or heal'.

 See? Those are retro-styled games, but taking into account modern sensibilities. This game is stuck in the past just because. Things were acceptable back then because the standards were different, because we didn't know how good it could get.

 The Legend of Legacy is absolutely terrible. The faux difficulty I could live without if only the level ups weren't random. If I knew that replaying the 30 minutes I lost would get me the same results, I wouldn't half as much. But for all I know, I could spend upwards of an hour without getting as much HP or Attack as I managed, ENTIRELY THROUGH LUCK,  on my main character. This is punishing for all the wrong reasons. The game is terrible, if you want a retro-styled, nintendo-hard RPG, get Etrian's Odyssey. Get The Dark Spire. Get anything but Legend of Legacy.

Mid-Year wrap up

 Sometimes, a dude just wants to write, but he has nothing readily available for him to write about, in which case, why not resort to what I've been doing the past six months? What lingers on my mind, what did I like, what did I hate, why was The Evil Within so good?

  It's incredible just how well Chrono Trigger has aged. It truly was a 'Dream Team' that was brought together to work on this game. While the characters aren't particularly deep, they are memorable, the plot is memorable, and the music, man, oh man, the music! I liked the game a lot before replaying it, but after the fact, I realized that I loved it.

  I remember being piqued by curiosity regarding Danganronpa, I wanted to invest on the entire franchise, but I wasn't too sure, so I opted to play D1 first and then see where it goes. It was fantastic. I mean, I think the gameplay was too convoluted to be any fun, and the sequel got even worse in this regard, but the story was fantastic. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was engaging and kept me hooked until I finally finished it.

  Devil May Cry 4 is, in a lot of ways, what I would've expected of a HD successor to a game franchise. It was, when stripped to the bone, DMC 3 but prettier. However, the fell short on some fronts. Namely, playing as both Dante and Nero feels fantastic, heck, I'd say that at times it feels even better than DMC 3. But that's as far as the mechanics are concerned, the level design was.... It had some slow-paced sections that really brought the game down, like play with the razor top-spins in the ice palace, or the absolutely terrible dice sections. And, y'know what? I didn't really mind having to play both levels twice, but, BUT what I did mind was how little game was for either Nero and Dante. Sure, it's a blast to play, but there's so little to play in! If we could've at least played both versions of each level with both characters, then at least it would've given us more to play with. It's a shame really.

  DMC 1 has aged very, very gracefully, I think I wasn't able to appreciate it back in the day, as I don't remember caring too much for it. DMC 2 on the other hand, for whatever reason, I loved it... nowadays, while I wouldn't go as far as to call it terrible, as most people do, it was an undeniable step back for the franchise. DMC 3 however, it's so flippin' good. The combo system is phenomenal, pummeling on enemies feels fantastic and there's a lot of different weapons to play with, there's a ton of costumes to unlock, and then there's Vergil who comes equipped with his own style. And unlike DMC 4, you can play the entire game as both characters, and sure, Vergil doesn't get his own story or exclusive levels, but he doesn't need them, his own particular style is all he needs to offer a different experience from Dante.

  Cyber Sleuth was a pleasant surprise. I really liked how much it felt like a Shin Megami Tensei game, since I love that franchise. I've always felt that Digimon had better monster designs than Pokemon, but worse games, well, Cyber Sleuth manages to put Pokemon Y/X/OR/AS to shame, but I remain ever hopeful for Sun and Moon, since they've already had time to play with the 3DS' specs. But I digress, I loved Cyber Sleuth, but they reaaaaaaaaally need to tone down the grinding.

 DmC never had a chance. Never. Most gamers are very abhorrent to change, which is a shame. Look at Marvel and DC comics, they never manage to leave their status quo because of this. Sure, Doc. Ock might take over Peter's body, but you know that it's gonna revert back to Peter, because that's what the mainstream knows, and that's the only audience that they care about. 'Oh noes, the new Iron Man is a black girl!' Well, I'd care if only I didn't know that Tony will be back as Iron Man eventually, and this new lass will be given a new codename. Man, Marvel and DC comics suck. But I digress, and it wouldn't be an original of mine if I didn't, cause that's, like, my staple. And there I go again.
 Anyways, as soon as the new Dante was revealed, the game lost any chance of ever being successful. 'Fans' may argue that it's the 'braindead combat' that turned them away, but I'd argue that most people had already passed their judgment based on Dante's look alone. Fact: Old Dante was a bigger prick than New Dante, at least New Dante didn't get any innocents killed. Fact: The new game is easier than previous games. But it doesn't mean it's bad, 'easy games' are not bad by default, as if being 'easy' is a detriment to a game. And even then, there's multiple unlockable difficulties, like one-hit kills, if you really need to challenge yourself. And need I remind you that the only reason vanilla DMC3 was hard was because of Capcom USA thought it smart to turn 'Normal' into 'Hard'?
 But you can argue time and time again, it won't make a change, 'fans' hate this game, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And, honestly, it's their loss.

 Megaman Powere Up and Megaman Maverick Hunter X were two amazing remakes. They aren't exact 1:1 remakes with the previous games, although level design was kept relatively faithful, you can tell that the 'physics' aren't the same. Regardless, most of the differences of this ilk are inconsequential to the enjoyment of either game, and in the case of Megaman 1, it makes it even better, damn, Megaman would skate all over the place on his first outing!
 But Megaman X was downright amazing, and Maverick Hunter X follows suit, adding a ton of extras to make the deal even sweeter. Not only do you get a fully animated Ova, Day of Sigma, which I will fully admit to not caring in the slightest about, but you also get Vice as a playable character. Vice's game is really good once it gets going. You see, when you start playing with Vice, he sucks. He is fragile, he has little firepower and the stages feel harder. Heck, I even died on the introduction stage, and I know I wasn't the only one. I almost quit since I couldn't get through Chill Penguin's stage, it was that hard. But I soldiered on, and it turns out that the more you play, the stronger Vice gets, and the more weapons he gets. By the end of the game, Vice is more versatile than X could ever become, and packs firepower to spare. It's so rewarding going from zero to, erm, villain.

 I'm done singing Megaman X's praises, but then there's X2, which managed to be almost as good as the original. As a matter of fact, I think that people who play X2 before X1 will like X2 the better. And after you are done with X2, there's X3, which... isn't quite as good, but it's still a great game on its own right. And then there's Megaman X4, which was all sorts of fantastic, featuring an entirely new, gorgeous spriteset and some of the best bosses Megaman X has ever had. And then you can jump right into X5 and... it really went down hill, didn't it? But at least it's a decent game. You want more? X6 is waiting for you!.... And X6 sucks. It has terrible level design, with a couple of obstacles that are unwinnable by design, or unless you managed to get the proper equipment, which can be lost forever. It features some of the laziest spritework yet seen in the franchise, joined by the worst bosses in the series.
 But at the end of the day, you got four fantastic games, a decent one and only one stinker, that's a knockout on my book!

  Extreme VS Force, you disappointing little game you. Gundam VS Gundam Final Plus on the PSP is one of the finest games you can get on that console, and Extreme VS is one of my favorite games ever. Now, imagine being able to take Extreme VS on the go with me, how amazing would that be? Particularly since these games lend themselves to handhelds pretty well.
 The initial release was a total clunker. You had about a third of the total amount of suits available on Full Boost on the PS3, and only one mode, 'Extreme Force', which while relatively decent, showed that the engine really didn't lend itself to that type of game. And, compared to the previous outing on the PSP, had less characters, less stages and less modes. Absolutely unacceptable. Subsequent patches had added a few more mobile suits, and finally a VS mode, but I think it was a little bit too late. And, while I can now acknowledge it as a great game, I haven't played it as much as I thought I would. While we have over 40 suits now, it still feels bitter when you think that you could be playing with even more characters on the console version.

 Back when I was younger, I decided that I didn't like Survival Horror, but I had at least dabbled into Resident Evil 1 and 3, and much later Code Veronica. Regardless, even though I hadn't played REvil 2, I still wanted to try it out, for whatever masochistic reason, and had already decided that Leon and Claire were my favorite characters of the franchise.
 Well, I finally got to play Resident Evil 2 this year, and it was great. I still like Leon and Claire the best, but at least now I have reasons to do so besides 'they look cool'. The movement is very clunky 'n all, but I really like it, dunno why. Maybe, maybe, eventually, this year, I might try my hands at Resident Evil 1 again, and get Resident Evil 3. Maybe.

 The Evil Within is still my runner for my favorite game of the year, this year. So far, since I discovered that I like survival horror, I prefer Resident Evil's gameplay(Both classic and modern), but prefer Silent Hill's story and monster design. Resident Evil games are fun to play, but Silent Hill games are fun to play through.
 Now, mix Silent Hill's psychological horror with the more organic enemy designs with Resident Evil's now trademark over the shoulder camera and you get The Evil Within. And I love it to bits. Interestingly, the other day I was thinking about it, I couldn't remember anything about the main characters, I didn't even remember that Sebastian was called Sebastian, which shows just how unremarkable they were. But the set pieces? The environments? The monsters? Those I remember very, very clearly. That moment when you finally get through the gate during the early parts of the game, and very organically, you realize that you've awoken dozens of enemies, and by that part it's impossible to have much ammo, so you instinctively choose to run. 10 outta 10 moment right there. What about the set piece with the rotating razor in the middle? I remember dying multiple times there, but it was fun nonetheless. There's also the caves, when you meet locker-head, and he kills himself in order to respawn near you. Awesome. By the end of the game, the horror elements kinda got a bit diluted and it turned into an action game featuring monsters, but it made sense, since the entire city had gone to hell, and now it was killed or be killed..
 The Evil Within is a top notch game, I've been contemplating replaying it every now and then, but then I remind myself of my backlog and how I should be making some progress on those games instead. Regardless, The Evil Within is, so far, my favorite game I've played this year.

Review #335: 3DS Download Kid Icarus - Of Myths and Monsters

 It hasn't aged very well.

 Kid Icarus is one of Nintendo's oldest franchises, yet one that has been severely underutilized. 'Of Myths and Monsters' was the second entry on the series, released exclusively on the Gameboy, and while, at the time, it was praised for smoothing over some of the first games rough edges, I'd venture to say it hasn't aged very well at all.

 The plot is a bit silly and entirely inconsequential to the game itself; basically, Goddess Palutena has a dream about Orcos invading the heavens, so she sends out Pit through a series of training challenges. And, spoiler alert, as soon as you finish the training, Orcos attacks and it's up to Pit to save Palutena. The game is divided in 4 stages, the first three with four sub-stages each. The first three stages would be Pit's training, and and on the fourth sub-stage you are thrust upon an annoying maze-like environment that concludes with a boss fight.

 Most levels are relatively linear affairs, either go from left to right or get to the top of the stage in order to beat it. But you'd better not, as spread throughout them are different doors that will take you to stores, healing springs or bonus stages. Currency is earned by killing enemies, and you will need to go out of your way to grind for enemy kills, which spawn infinitely, if you want to buy anything, as everything is plenty expensive. Among the bonus stages are 'survival' type affairs, in which clearing them awards you with one of three weapons. These weapons only work when you have a determinate amount of health on your health bar, but you'll need two levels at least to use the first one of this weapons. Your health gauge is increased by amassing a certain amount of points, and after clearing a level, if you managed to get enough points, Zeus will upgrade your health to a maximum of five. 

 Honestly, I thought the entire game was a waste of time. You are expected to sit near enemy spawners and kill them ad nauseaum to amass currency and so properly equip Pit for the different stages. However, to say that the game was devoid of any fun would be wrong, as some of the platforming in the latter levels was decidedly enjoyable, and seeing Pit get stronger as you get more life upgrades and weapon upgrades felt pretty satisfying. Once you are fully equipped, it becomes even more enjoyable, as you try to avoid damage in order to keep your upgrades activated.

 Bottom-line is, I think Kid Icarus is a victim of age. And while the game starts off very boring, once you've amassed a small fortune and are well on your way upgrading Pit, it becomes relatively enjoyable.

 4.5 out of 10

Now Playing; 3DS Download Kid Icarus - Of Myths and Monsters

 Blegh

 When playing older games one has to take into account that back when they were released, it was a different time. Games were made artificially harder in order to extend the game's life and either incite multiple rentals or directly purchases. I grew up with a joystick in my hands, so I can put up with a lot of archaic mechanics, if the game is good.

 Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters is a drag. You jump and shoot on the most boring of stages. 'But it was a different time! They only had two buttons at the time! And the gameboy's screen was small!' Yeah, well, look at Mario Bros classic, that game is even less complex than this one, and it's still a lot more fun. Look at Megaman, you jump and shoot, except that it's fun in those games.

 But what makes it so boring? The fact that it's a grindfest. Climbing to the top of each level is relatively easier, but if you want to buy power ups, you are gonna have to abuse the endlessly spawning enemies to make a fortune. Which takes time. And stuff is expensive. Heck, the only way to increase your life bar is to finish a level with a high score, which means... going out of your way to kill as many enemies as you can. It's not fun, it's a waste of time.

 I just defeated the first boss, and man was that boring. It wasn't even hard, it was simply boring, I had level 3 fire arrows, and kept pumping and pumping arrows but the thing wouldn't go down.

 And that's my initial impressions with the game: It's a waste of time. I don't like it.

Review #334: Liberation Maiden

 Because Suda 51 is god.

 And here we have another small, semi-experimentational game part of the 'guild' series that, for whatever reason, wasn't deemed worthy of a full, physical release over seas. In Liberation Maiden case, it's a 3D shooter by Suda 51 in collaboration with Level 5.

 The game doesn't do a good job of explaining the setting, but what you need to know is that you play as Shoko, new Japan's president, who must protect her country from invading enemies by piloting her humongous mecha. It's Suda 51 alright. The game is divided into 5 stages, which mostly consist of doing three missions and a sub missions before tackling the boss. It lasts about 1 hour on the Normal difficulty setting, but there's also an easy and hard mode, as well as an Stage Attack mode, if you care about any of those.

 On each stage you are dropped on a medium-sized area filled with enemies, and then you are told your first objective. While you can go fulfill it at any time, you are free to explore and destroy enemies, although the only reward will be more points, so there's no real rewards for exploring. The left analog stick is used to move around, holding the L button allows you to strafe and the Stylus takes care of combat. If you bought Kid Icarus, you'll probably want to use the Stand it came with, since I struggled with a few hand cramps as I played along.

 Interestingly, your offensive means are also your defense! There's two weapons, the Laser and the Gun/Missile. To use the gun, you hover the reticule, with the stylus, over the enemies and then let go, it can also be charged for extra damage, while the laser fires constantly as you move the reticule around. The 'ammo' for these weapons is also your shield, so depleting your ammo, which recharges once you stop touching the screen with the stylus, will leave you open to take damage. Still, getting hit while the gauge is fully loaded will penalize you by reducing its total capacity, which means less ammo for your weapons. You can recharge this capacity by defeating enemies. I don't usually play shooters, so I don't know how original of a mechanic it is, but what I do know is that I found it rather fun.

 There's not a whole lot of story to the game, but Suda 51's flavor can be felt on the gameplay. It's hard to explain the why or how, but you can tell that Suda 51 had to something to do with it, even the HUD feels very Suda 51. Still, it's far from his best endeavors, but I think that can be attributed to the game's original nature: This is a single part of a whole package. It wasn't meant to be a 'complete' game, which explains its simple premise and very, very short duration. Still, there's something to be said about them managing to make the gameplay so engaging when it was meant to be something so simple.

 As it stands, I feel the same way about this game as I did with Attack of the Friday Monsters: It's a great, small game considering what it was meant to be, but I'm sure it would've worked much better alongside the other two games it was released with, as a compilation of multiple games from multiple directors. Still, the small fee of admission is worth it, and it does have a broader appeal than Attack of the Friday Monsters.
 7.0 out of 10