Review #356: Twisted Metal(PS3)

 The only thing twisted here are the controls.

 Welcome to Sony's oldest original franchise. Featuring over six games, Twisted Metal on the PS3 was the last entry, at this time, to be released. It serves as a sort of a reboot as far as the world of Twisted Metal is concerned, but sticks to its fundamentals where gameplay is concerned.

 While the original series features a bunch of psychos and wackos fighting on their vehicles to have their wishes granted, the reboot axed most characters, so now we've only got Sweet Tooth, Dollface and Mr. Grimm as playable characters(As well as a 'Holy Men' faction) and Calypso as the returning wish-granting NPC. The game's main single player mode, Story Mode, takes you through 18 missions, 6 per character, interspersed with live action cutscenes. I gotta admit, I adored the story, it's dark, gritty, sick and... twisted. It's highly entertaining watching this kind of characters on a videogame.

  As sickly entertaining as the story behind the three main protagonists is, this mode is prone to frustrate players. The combat stages are annoying, particularly on harder difficulty settings, since the CPU will gang up on you and ignore each other. Races are a challenging mess that require memorization, and don't even let me get started on how vexing the second boss is! As far as single player goes, you've also got a pretty good basics tutorial, training modes for the online modes and a challenge mode against CPUs. It's a bit lacking, and considering how frustrating the Story Mode can get... Single player options leave a lot to be desired.

 One thing they did that deserves praise is how unlocks work. Most unlockables are selectable form the get-go in offline multiplayer and challenge mode, but must be unlocked separately for use in Single Player and Online Multiplayer separately. It's a fantastic concept, since you can just pop-in the game and have fun with other local players without having to dabble in Single player. What's not so praise worthy are the local multiplayer offerings. Story Mode can be played with up to two players, which is kinda neat, and there's Deathmatches for up to four players... But only Deathmatch. Other, more interesting, multiplayer modes can only be played only. Lame!

 As far as gameplay is concerned, it's your typical Twisted Metal game. You are thrown in an environment, 9 in all, which can be picked in small, medium and large variations, and must drive around collecting weapons to unleash upon your foes, and thus eliminate them. There's a decent amount of weapons to use, side-arms(Weapons that are equipped by default and have unlimited ammo) as well as special moves unique to each vehicle. While most characters from the franchise are gone, some of their vehicles return, and there's a decent variety, each with their own Special weapon set ups and stats. When the game is at its best, it's a blast. Single Player runs silky smooth, and 2-Player Split-screen works pretty decently.

 But where the game suffers the most is in its controls. You can either opt for classic controls or more modern 'racer' controls. Either one comes with its own caveats, so you will end up fumbling about while you get comfortable with whichever scheme you chose. 

 Twisted Metal has a lot going for it. An interestingly twisted setting, fun and smooth gameplay, huge, destructible environments as well as a decent repertoire of vehicles to choose from. Sadly, unless you plan to play the game online or in multiplayer, most of its virtues are thrown out the window thanks to annoying CPU bots and poorly designed racing stages, not to mention that it can take a while before you finally get a grasp on the awkward control scheme. Basically, you'll probably want to steer away from Twisted Metal unless you're planning on playing the Multiplayer modes.

 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Twisted Metal(2012)

 Bullets, tires and clowns.

 Ah! Twisted Metal, a franchise as old as the Playstation itself, this franchise has accompanied Sony's consoles ever since the original Playstation. I will admit, however, that I've only played one game in the franchise: Black, and while I wasn't particularly fond of it, I still had a fair bit of fun with it, enough for me to consider, and eventually getting the 2012's reboot. After going through Sweet Tooth's story mode, I've come away with mixed feelings.

 What I did like: The game runs smooth as butter, environments look phenomenal, the action is fast and furious, split screen! A lot of stuff to unlock, and most of it is unlocked by default in Multiplayer, brilliant.

 What I didn't like: As little as I know about the franchise, I know that it's missing a ton of classic characters, and one of the missing characters is (free)DLC. And even then, there's only 3 returning characters, as well as the 'Holy Men' faction. Single Player rounds can go on for a bit too long, the CPU is annoying to fight. They love ganging up on you! The controls are also a bit hard to get a hang of, I might get used to them after a while. There might be too few stages to play in.

 After clearing Sweet Tooth's story mode... I'm a bit iffy about Twisted Metal. I think it's an alright game, but the concept doesn't lend itself for a fun time if you are playing by yourself. Multiplayer might be where it's at.

Review #355: Pokemon Sun

 Two step forwards, one step back, as per usual.

 It's amazing how even when Pokemon changes, it doesn't really change. What I mean to say is that Pokemon Sun is yet another Pokemon game that improves on the previous game... yet removes a few features that really did wonders for the franchise. While GameFreak excuses it as 'wanting each game to have its own personality/features', in the end, no Pokemon game will ever be completely superior to a previous game, at least when they belong to the same platform.

 Y'know the drill, you, an 11 year old kid, moves to a new region, Alola in this case, and must defeat the 8 Gym Leaders and then tackle the Elite Four.... except not, not this time. Gyms and Gym Leaders are gone, instead you must traverse the four islands that make up Alola and clear the Pokemon Captain's Trials as well as the 4 Kahunas, and then tackle the Elite four. To be honest, the Captain's Trials are pretty much Gyms, except that instead of clearing simple puzzles, fighting trainers and then the Gym Leader, you must now clear simple puzzles, fight a few random Pokemon and then fight a powered-up Pokemon. Basically, same old, same old but under a new coat of paint. I will grant it that the Trials are a decent change of pace, but Gyms were much more entertaining, and I'd rather have them back, that said, I won't hold this little experiment against them, since The Pokemon Company finally tried something slightly different. The rest of the game is pretty much the same, explore towns, battle in turn-based combat, collect all the different Pokemon, yadda yadda.

 The game looks drop-dead gorgeous. The new Alolan region is a breath of fresh air thanks to its tropical theme as well as the huge amount of variety present in the different towns and areas. It's a beautiful game the whole way through. Pokemon battles have also received a few graphical tweaks, with better special effects and I think they increased the color saturation a bit, which is a good thing. That said, battles run kinda janky on the old 3DS models. Frame drops are common, and fights featuring more than two Pokemon will lag considerably, it will even take a few seconds to process your move selection... It can get pretty ugly on 2 vs 2 battles. An option to turn off the Trainers on the battle arenas could've done wonders for these issues.

 Now, let's get into the brilliant new additions to the formula. Firstly, one of my chief complaints, you can now check the typing of any Pokemon you've already fought while in battle, and it will also tell you how effective your moves will be. Fantastic. And now the biggie, HMs are finally gone, now replaced by rideable Pokemon that can be called at any time and don't require you to have a Pokemon on your party with the required abilities. Sadly, Soaring is gone, which was one of the funnest parts about Omega Ruby, what's more, the Map is a bit of a pain to understand, which makes using Charizad to 'fly' to other areas a bit of a hassle. I've never had trouble understanding previous games' maps, but this one is hideous to look at and zooming in is anything but useful.

 Customization is back! Hell yeah! AND YOU CAN FINALLY TAKE OFF THAT UGLY HAT!!... but it's a bit limited. First and foremost, colors are divided between versions, Sun gets the Yellow, Red and Oranges while Moon gets Blues, Purples, Greens etc. You can dye a few clothing items in the Online Hub(more on this later) though, but it's an unnecessary annoyance. Clothing options are also severely lacking when compared with X and Y, for instance, there's no long sleeves or long pants for the Boy character. Seriously? There aren't many different styles besides shorts, tank tops and short-sleeved shirts. Disappointing. There's a few more hairdos and hair colors, but you can's see how they look, so you have to pay and then look at the result, once again, disappointing. So yeah, two step forwards, one step back: You can take off the hat, but there's little variety in clothes.

 Super Training has been removed, substituted by PokePelagos. In PokePelagos you can leave Pokemon to raise their Evs, levels and even gather items. It's... It's a decent substitute to Super Training, but I didn't really care too much for either. But the biggest blunder is that you can't look at your EVs anymore. Although you can tap Y in the stats menu to get the EV spread, it's not as precise as the gauge that you'd get on the DexNav. And that useful feature that let you know if you were missing Pokemon from an area added in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire? Gone, because Gamefreak just doesn't want us having nice things..

 Now let's get into the mediocre new additions, starting with the Z-Moves. Actually, let's start with MegaEvolutions, it seems like Nintendo gave up on them, which kinda sucks since I grew fond of the feature. You do get the Mega Ring after clearing the Story Mode, but they didn't add new MegaEvolutions, and they've been banned from Official Tournaments, Basically, Nintendo doesn't want you using MegaEvolutions. In their stead we get Z-Moves, a super powerful move that can only be done by a single Pokemon and only a single time in a battle. It's... dull. There's a Z-Move per type, albeit a Pokemon can only be equipped with only ONE type of Z-stone(Each Z stone has unlimited uses, so you could have an entire team sporting the Z-Fire move), as well as a few exclusive Z-Moves for a select few, namely the starter Pokemon and Pikachu, because even though he is a poor choice for any team, the game's Mascot needs to one-up the rest of the 'mons. Z-Moves look powerful, in contrast to the ridiculous poses your character adopts when using them, but I'd much rather have more MegaEvolutions.

 And now let's get into what they broke: The online features. X/Y and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire got online right by making it a menu you could access at any time by tapping the lower screen. It worked well, it was fast, it was efficient. Now you are forced to go into this 'Festival Plaza' hub town before accessing any online feature. It feels so... unnecessary, why tweak what previous games had gotten right so well? Hub Towns acting as menus never, ever work. At least the GTS and Wonder Trade work exactly like they used to, even if you've got to go through extra steps to use them.

 And now, let's get into what the got wrong. The first thing I need to mention is the slow pace, this is easily the most cinematic Pokemon game yet, so your adventure will be interrupted by superfluous chatter and needless exposition all the time. The game's beginning is particularly bad about it, it takes a loooong while before you are actually let to your own devices, and even longer before you can finally start fighting Pokemon in the while. And once again, the capturing tutorial is mandatory. Are they serious? Who hasn't played Pokemon yet? And in that case, why not ASK me if I want to suffer it? Like, goddamn, Nintendo. This 'everyone is an idiot/everyone is a new player' philosophy permeates the entire experience. You'll be reminded of where to go every time you get a new objective or turn on the game, as well as having markers on the map(The latter one isn't a bad thing by its own, but as a part of a whole...), and your Pokemon will be healed up pretty frequently by various NPCs, so it's pretty hard to feel danger at any time. Now, I don't mind easy games, and it's true that Pokemon's main demographic are children, but, BUT, at least let me play the game instead of forcing me through vapid dialogue so frequently.

 Then we have SOS Battles, substituting Horde Battles. Certain Pokemon may randomly call for aid during battle, so a 1 on 1 could turn into a 1 on 2. I think that on paper this sounded like a good idea, but in theory, these are boring. The 'asking for help' animation/cut-scene takes a while, and keep in mind that the game starts slowing-down once a third pokemon enters the fray. And you can't try to capture a Pokemon while there's two of them for whatever reason. Now then, imagine you are trying to capture a Ditto, and it keeps constantly calling for aid from other Pokemon. You waste a turn killing the new fighter, then you have to sit through the 'asking for help' animation, and then a new monster appears, rinse and repeat. You've no idea just how boring these can get. Oh, and we've over 800 monsters already, yet it seemed like the first three island were populated by the same Pokemon, there's a depressing lack of variety in Pokemon species at first, and it doesn't help that there's a few Pokemon that may only appear as back up, so good luck wasting turns until they are called for. The cherry on top being that it seems like the newest Pokemon are the hardest to come by!

 After clearing the game you'll have access to a few new sidequests, like capturing the elusive Ultra Beasts, an option to turn night into day and vice-versa and the Battle Tree where you can find a few returning faces and do battle with them. Honestly, it's a bit lacking when compared to previous games, even the amount of Legendary Pokemon available for you to capture is paltry. If you're not into competitive fighting, this might be the most disappointing post game since Red/Blue. And to add insult to injury, X and Y had the best leveling with the Battle Chateu. ORAS gave you the Island, which wasn't as good but reseted every day. Sun and Moon have... Pokepelagos. And there's also a facility in the FEstival Plaza that levels up your mons. Leveling up your mons is a bit slower this way, and not as fun as battling your way through levels, which was mighty disappointing. Bring back the Chateau please. At least the Island! Just give us normal trainers we can rematch for XP!

 In short, Pokemon Sun is your typical Pokemon game. There's some fantastic new features, there's some horrible new features, they kept some great things and they got rid of some great things as well. When it's all said and done, Pokemon Sun is the best Pokemon game available on the 3DS, but it's far from the best it could've been,
 8.0 out of 10

Final Fantasy VIII Demo Disc

 In which I partake in one of Square's fabled demo discs.

 Back in the 90s/early 00s, Square devised a fantastic idea to sell their more... monetarily risky games, y'know, their one-off all-new IPs like Brave Fencer Musashi, Parasite Eve, Tobal, etc. While these game turned out great on their own right, Square just wanted to make sure that they would recoup the budget they spent, by coupling these releases with demos for their hottest upcoming games. Fast forward to the present day, and these demo discs have become somewhat of a collector's item, many times ending up being more expensive than the complete games they came bundled with!

 Unsurprisingly, these discs have eluded me, not that I care since I'm not into demos... but not this time! The Brave Fencer Musashi copy I tracked down came with FF VIII's demo disc! And having just played it... it's surprisingly unsurprising! I was expecting some interesting changes, but it's mostly minutiae:

 - NORMAL CLOTHES: The demo takes place during Seifer, Squall and Zell's first mission in Dollet. However, Squall and Zell are wearing their casual clothes instead of their SeeD duds.

 - MUTE RINOA, NO SELPHIE: Your party is made up of Squall, Zell and... Rinoa. All she says is '...', but it's rather interesting getting to play as Rinoa on a sequence where she is unavailable in the full game! Selphie is missing from the entire ordeal, not even making an appearance near the satellite tower.

 - HARDCORE BOSS BATTLE: This was rather surprising, the game's first boss, the creature that does in Wedge and Biggs at the top of the tower is really tough. It took me a rather long while to take down, whether it's due to the fact that you only get Leviathan or because he got buffed is beyond me. Still, ultimately it was fun, it would've been interesting to get a 'hard mode' on Final Fantasy games back in the day.

 - SQUALL AND SEIFER SEEM FRIENDLY?: I might be remembering things wrong, but Seifer and Squall seemed rather... friendly. I recognized a few lines from the final release, and Seifer even mentioned his 'romantic dream', but a lot of the dialogue felt different, and I didn't notice much antagonistic banter between these two. Their talk near the Radio Tower with Squall talking about 'a subject I don't like' doesn't seem to ring a bell at all, for example, and there's a few added lines about the characters ages too.

 - ALTERED CG SCENES: The Dollet CG scenes have been entirely remade to feature Squall and Zell on their casual wear as well as Rinoa. Plus, Quistis' scene at the end has her replaced by a generic high-poly soldier.

- LIMIT BREAKS - DIFFERENT NAME. FUNCTION AND ACTIVATION: I only managed to trigger Zell and Squall's Limit Breaks, they seem to activate veeery rarely. They have different names and work differently than in the final fame. Zell's just a single special move while Squall's R1 trigger function rhythm bar has been changed.

 - THE OBVIOUS: The magic you can draw from enemies is different than the one features in the full game, there's no Draw Points or Save Points, which is to be expected.

 All in all... it was rather unimpressive. I was expecting different enemies in these places and maybe some tweaks to the objectives. It's easy to tell that the game's development was progressing smoothly when the demo was made.

Month Overview: November 2016

 Tally:
Tony Hawk's Project 8           6.0
Silent Hill - Homecoming                                7.5


 November came and went. It was a rather eventful academic month, yet rather uneventful as far as my gaming went.


Game of November 2016:

 Interestingly, while I think I liked Homecoming more than Downpour... when I think about it, I think Downpour was one of the most memorable games I've played this year, and I think it has to do with theming. Downpour went for two themes: Prison and Jail as well as Water and Rain. Everything around the environment, and even the monsters, reflected on these two themes. Sure, the monster design was lackluster, but when you judge the game as a whole, it was fantastically designed around those two concepts. The streets of Silent Hill felt wet, the walls of the buildings looked humid, monsters either looked as if they were soaked or as prison escapees. The we had the Otherworld's environments, which had jails and cages allover, while looking very damp

 I do feel like Homecoming is a better game, but, but it lacks the same focus. Monster design is fantastic, but in a franchise that prides itself behind adding meaning to the monsters, it falls rather short. The Otherworld environments were scary, yes, but they lacked the same level of personality that Downpour had overall. Regardless, Homecoming was my favorite game this month(Not like there was much to choose from!)

 Runner-up:

 I'm not gonna lie, Project 8, if judged on its own inside a vacuum, is a really good game. Skating around felt great, there's dozens of different mechanics and trick as well as a decent amount of missions to complete.
 But I just can't ignore previous games in the franchise that I've played. I can't ignore how much I preferred the more arcadey physics from the previous games, the more creative objectives from previous games, but above all else, the fantastic, creative and ridiculous skate parks that made it a joy to skate around. In Project 8 you get different types of skate parks or similar looking streets, with only the Factory and the Fun Park standing out from the rest.
 Overall, I'd call it a successful jump into the HD generation, but far from the best that the franchise could over.

Now Playing: Pokemon Sun

  Pokemon goes tropical.

 First things first, I'm almost three hours into the game and I'm already tired of the pace. Let's face it, most people playing this entry will be returning players, I know how to capture a goddamn Pokemon, I've been doing it for over 15 years already. Remember the classics? Back then an NPC would ask you if you wanted to see how to catch a Pokemon. Why not ASK me, Gamefreak, why? Just friggin' ask so I can friggin' deny you and your stupid tutorial. For what it's worth, at least this time around it went rather swiftly. This ties into the pacing because the game starts off, and hopefully this is only a thing for the early beginning of the game veeeeeery slowly and in a veeeeeeeery cinematic way.

 It worked for X and Y because by the time the cutscenes started making their appearance I had already started to like the cast. Plus, tiny details like running around with your chums added personality to the game and made me care for these kids. I don't care for this blonde chick who is running away from these mysterious chumps, I just wanted to play the goddamn game. Older Pokemon games didn't need these fancy set-ups, you were a kid on an adventure, the less it was said, the better. Right now I'm up to the Trainer School, and they keep directing me where to go. 'No, Scion, don't go that way', 'The lab is this way, Scion', 'There's a Tauros on the Road'. Like, chill, THESE GAMES ARE ABOUT A 10 YEAR OLD GOING ON AN ADVENTURE, I CAN'T ADVENTURE IF YOU KEEP ORDERING ME AROUND. And what's up with forcing me into the Trainer School? This has always been an optional detour, why force me into it now? I KNOW HOW FLIPPING POKEMON WORKS, GODDAMN, AND I WANT TO FLIPPIN' PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME.

 And what's up with the Festival Plaza?! The online features in X/Y/OR/AS were very streamlined, simple, to the point, easy to navigate, etc. This.... pseudo hubtown is a needless addition that makes it more of a chore to go online and try trading Pokemon.

 All that aside, at least GameFreak has learned a bit from previous games, almost as if they have been taking the criticisms and took them into consideration. One of my biggest issues with the modern games was the fact that now we had over 800 creatures and it was impossible to remember every Pokemon's type as well as the weaknesses charts... so now not only can you check the type of the Pokemon during a battle, but you'll also know if your attacks are super effective or not. That's a fantastic addition. It also seems like customization is back, although I haven't gotten so far yet, so that's definitely a plus, customization was one of the best parts about X and Y and it was a shame to see it gone in ORAS. And from what I could gather, as hard as I tried to avoid spoilers, HM slaves seem to be a thing of the past. About time!

 It needs to be said: The presentation is nothing short of spectacular. There's not a single 3DS game that looks better than Pokemon Sun and Moon. Heck, I'm pretty sure some of the graphics for the attacks have been given a make over and look much better than before. And it seems to run relatively well on the old 3DS. Relatively, because I've noticed a few frame drops during battles and even while exploring some areas with a lot of objects, like rocks, trees and grass.

 To sum up, what I did like:
 - Graphics
 - Return of customizing your character(?)
 - Removal of HM Slaves(?)
 - Added information during battles

What I didn't like:
 - Being treated like an idiot by GameFreak and Nintendo. I KNOW HOW TO CAPTURE A GODDAMN POKEMON.
 - The slow pace, at least so far.
 - The handholding. I WILL EXPLORE THE TOWN BY MYSELF, YOU'VE ALREADY TOLD ME WHERE TO GO, I WILL GO THERE WHENEVER THE **** I FEEL LIKE GOING THERE.
 - The Festival Plaza.

Archile's Grab-bag: Last one o'the year Edition.

 It's that time of the year again...

  Dragon Quest VIII: A game I've been meaning to play for a while now. I could've waited for the 3DS port, which added new characters... but I felt like the 3DS was a bit underpowered to run the game as smoothly as the PS2, and I didn't much care for the new characters, so might as well get this version!

  Brave Fencer Musashi: When I was younger I ached to play this game for a loooong while before finally being able to satiate that need, and when I finally did, for one reason or another, I didn't finish it. Regardless, it was a neat little game that I want to play now, so that, I will.

  Tony Hawk's Underground 2: Oh, yeah! My favorite Tony Hawk game!... which isn't saying much, actually, considering that I had only played Pro Skater 3, 4 and a demo of 2. Regardless, while I spent much, much more time playing Pro Skater 4, Underground 2 was the most memorable to me. It had the best mechanics, the most memorable levels and skaters and a ridiculous story tying it all together. I've longed to play this one again ever since I decided to get back into Tony Hawk, so I'm stoked to revisit it.

  Pokemon Sun: It's frigging Pokemon. I've tried to avoid as much information as possible, something which was impossible with Facebook vomiting the new reveals on my face, as well as videogame news outlets putting explicit thumbnails next to their titles. Why? Because I wanted to replicate the feeling of newness I felt when playing Ruby and Pearl for the first time, two generations that took me by surprise, since Internet wasn't such a big deal and I stopped reading videgoame magazines for Ruby's release and I didn't care much for the fourth generation and bought Pearl on a whim.
 Regardless, I watched a single trailer, and man, oh man, I wish they would use this game's engine for a proper, teen or adult-themed JRPG. It looks SO beautiful, I feel it's somewhat of a waste on a Pokemon game. Shin Megami Tensei 3D's games could definitely use a facelift.....

 Pandemonium 2: I kinda bought this on accident, since I actually wanted to get the first one first... While I've known about the Pandemonium games for a while now, I never really cared about them, but for whatever reason they piqued my interest this year, so I decided to take them for a whirl!