Review #393: Castlevania - Curse of Darkness

 White haired pretty boys, whips and leather... it's Castlevania alright.

 Konami was it again with Curse of Darkness, trying to prove that they could successfully bring Castlevania into the third dimension. If you ask me, Lament of Innocence got it just right, but if you go by reception alone, Curse of Darkness was the better received of the two... for whatever reason.

 You play as Hector, one of Dracula's two Devil Forgemasters, a being that can bring demon constructs into life and control them at will. Hector had previously betrayed Dracula and cause his downfall at the hands Trevor Belmont, but the other Forgemaster, Isaac, holds a grudge against him. Dracula also left a parting gift, his curse, causing chaos and strife amongst townspeople. Hector now ventures forth, seeking to beat Isaac to a pulp and unknowingly come face to face with Dracula's curse. It's not the most intriguing of tales, but I felt enamored by Hector, his plight and his dialogue. Characters speak in a faux Ye Olde English with hints of Shakeaspeare, which sounds all kinds of badass. The supporting cast is interesting enough, both in looks and personalities, and Trevor Belmont had never looked this badass before.

 For all intents and purposes, Curse of Darkness is yet another Metroidvania game: Games in which as you explore along a huge interconnected maze of sorts, you'll be faced with obstacles that can only be surpassed with the right power up or skill that you earn later throughout the adventure. However, fans of the genre might be surprised to hear that this game is rather linear, not once will you have to choose between two or more routes, and the backtracking is minimal, there're very few hurdles laying inside each area, and they only house power ups, and sometimes even less, items, instead of routes... although you'll be finding the occassional bridge between areas every now and then.

 The exploration aspect also leaves something to be desired, while exploration is encouraged in the form of diverse rewards of varying degrees of worth, the world of Curse of Darkness is rather... boring. The game quickly falls into a rut of 'Walk through the hallway killing everything in your way to enter the circled/squared arena-type room, kill everything there and enter the next enemy-ridden hallway. Rinse and repeat'. It can get pretty repetitive, and the different areas are not all that different from one another, so there's not a whole lot of visual variety to keep things looking fresh, eventually every hallway will start feeling like every other hallway you've already been through,

 They did improve upon Lament of Innocence in some ways, however, like adding a leveling up system, which makes combat feel more meaningful since you are always striving towards something. Combat's a very simple affair, you've got a weak attack and a strong attack that can be used to finish your weak-attack combos with flair. Hector, being a Devil Forgemaste, can also summon a single Innocent Devil, a familiar of sorts, to aid him in battle, with different spells to support Hector or damage the enemies. Hector can also dodge around and even parry enemy attacks, which feels oh so satisfying to pull off. By the way, making the 'open door' button and the 'strong attack' button the same button was a terrible idea, so avoid fighting near doors.

 Another improvement upon Lament of Innocence is the huge variety of weapons types that Hectore can acquire. There're swords, axes, spears, knuckles and 'special' varieties, each with their own combos. Not only that, even among types there're sub-types, like one handed or two handed swords and then rapier type blades that behave entirely different from each other. Not only that, some special weapons have a few unique strong attacks, and some have unique effects, like slashing kanji out of thin air, and sometimes, even longer weak attack strings. There're a ton of weapons, and they each reflect on the character model.

 Weapons and armor are not made in this game, but rather crafted. The crafting system is pretty easy to use, just gather the correct items, press start, choose combine, pick what you want to craft and wallah! Some material can only be gathered as enemy drops, and some material can only be found by stealing it from an enemy. Stealing can be simple or challenging depending on the enemy, for you see, each enemy has a different window of opportunity for you to steal from them. You must be locking onto the enemy that you want to steal from and then wait for them to enter the right state: Some enemies need to be doing their special attacks, some enemies only expose themselves AFTER a certain attack and some must be popped up into the air. As previously stated, some enemies will give you more or less trouble than others. Honestly, the drop-rate is generous enough, but if you truly want to keep your equipment updated, you will need to incur in stealing occasionally.

 Then we have the Innocent Devils, the monsters you can summon to aid you in battle. They're smart enough to be left to their own devices, but you can switch to a more manual mode in which they'll only use basic attacks unless you tell them to use a specific special attack. Keep in mind that Inoccent Devils run on hearts, which double as both their HP and currency for their special attacks. Running out of hearts, which can be replenished by gathering them from enemy drops, will temporarily leave the Innocent Devil unusable until you gather a certain amount. You can have about 7-8 of them with you at a time, but can only summon 1.

 Your Innocent Devils(ID) can evolve into different forms, each with their own look and special skills, depending on which weapons you use, which is a fantastic idea that promotes trying out different weapons. What's not so cool is that there're about six obstacles in the game that require specific abilities from specific evolutions or evolution paths, with not a single hint as to you needing them. How should you have known that there's an evolution path for the bird-type ID that leans an enhanced glide ability? How should you have known that you need a very specific battle-type ID to get through a single obstacle? It's a bit cheap, and it's a bit of an insult to the player and his time, because raising devils is not as easy or fast as crafting weapons, so experimenting with ID branches is not all that fun.

 In what is a Metroidvania staple, finishing the game lets you play as a bonus character, Trevor Belmont in this case. As is to be expected, Trevor gets no story, no cut-scenes and loses the ability to use items or level up. Trevor, however, is more of a glass cannon, while you can find items that will raise his stats, Trevor's base stats are already rather high, so he will make short work of enemies... as long as he doesn't get hit, since he'll never be able to take as much damage as Hector, and even if he could, he can't recover lost health by using items. Not only that, Trevor has his own unique way of playing, Hector can't replicate his whip-based style, and since Trevor can't use IDs... he gets Castlevania's traditional sub-weapon ensemble: The knives, the axes, the holy water, the cross and the stop-watch, alongside each respective 'Weapon Crash' for massive damage.

 Is Curse of Darkness better than Lament of Innocence? I don't think so, not at all. Does it improve upon it? In some ways, yes. It doesn't feel as Casltevania-ish, but it can stand on its own two feet. There's a lot going for it, even if I don't think they got every aspect right, there's quite a bit of fun to be had with it, from the interesting and alluring cast of characters, to the diverse weaponry waiting to be tried out.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Castlevania - Curse of Darkness

 What a horrible night to have a curse.

 It's no secret that I love me some Castlevania, and Curse of Darkness is pretty much the only Castlevania I've yet to play. And maybe the gameboyvanias. And while I did play Castlevania 64 I didn't play Legacy of Darkness... BUT I DIGRESS, Curse of Darkness was one of the very few Castlevania games I hadn't played, so I had to. I had to.

 It baffles me how lukewarm Lament of Innocence's reception was, as I felt that was the perfect way to bring Castlevania into 3D, whatever the case may be, Curse of Darkness had been better received, so I was wondering what all the hoopla about it was. And I still do. Don't get me wrong, I'm an hour into the game and I'm liking it, but not as much as Lament of Innocence, even though this one brought Weapon types into the mix.

 Oh glorious weapon types, there're 5 basic types: Sword, Axe, Spear, Knuckle and special, and it seems like there're subtypes among weapons, since the foil and the short sword have entirely different movesets. The combat is rather fun, although a targeting feature would've been welcome as I've hit the air more times than I would've liked. Landing 'Final Attacks' feels very crunchy and rewarding, so props to that.

 Curse of Darkness is pretty alright so far, but nothing too special or noteworthy. I'm not the biggest fan of 'Collect them all' mechanics', besides Pokemon, Digimon and Shin Megami Tensei, so I'm not digging the Innocent Devils and their evolutions, but I guess every Metroidvania needs its gimmick.

Review #392: Suikoden IV

 I pirate I was meant to be.

 So, it was Suikoden's fourth entry, so they had to do what any franchise has to do when it reaches its fourth entry, just ask Assassin's Creed, so they took to the seas. It's... it's an interesting experiment, although not an entirely successful one. So did this JRPG series survive their adventure into the seas?

 Sadly, we're back to a silent protagonist, whom we'll call Lazlo. Lazlo is training to be a knight alongside his friend Snowe and a few others. What should've been a simple patrol goes wrong and the True Rune of Punishment makes its way into Lazlo's hand. But Lazlo, being a silent protagonist, is more or less an accessory to this story of war, pirates, high seas and political intrigue. It's a decent plot, with a rather quirky pacing which will probably have a varying degree of success. Y'see, the game does a few... interesting things. For instance, the first 4-5 hours of the game are spent stranded on the sea, jumping from ship to ship and being a victim to the quirks of fate. It fits the story, but it won't appeal to everyone. Then there's the scene in which Lazlo and company are left stranded on a deserted island, and you must survive for three or four days... which means repeating the same mundane task of gathering food and supplies. It's not even hard, you just have to walk from place to place. FOUR TIMES. It's repetitive, it's kinda dull and it kills the game's pace... but it fits perfectly, since your characters are stranded, and instead of turning it into a cutscene of 'some times passed' you get to play it. I liked it, but your mileage will vary.

 The game's set on the 'Island Nations', about 12 Islands or so separated from each other by sea. Instead of having a traditional world map, your means of transportation is your ship, and you must travel from Island to Island. It sounds like an interesting setting for a JRPG, and it is, but the ship moves VERY slowly, even while holding the R1 button, and random encounters are very plentiful. Early in the game you'll come across a character that can transport you to Island you've previously visited, but every now and then you'll be forced to sail manually since the story demands it. In order to enter towns you must touch the vicinity of their harbors, but it's kinda wonky and it's easy to be repelled and sent sailing sideways due to annoying invisible walls. It's hard to describe without you playing it first-hand, but it can get pretty vexing.

 Another issue comes in the form of the size of the world. It's kinda huge, and thanks to the sailing speed, it takes a while to explore... but it's as huge as it is barren. There's only about 12 Islands, and they are very, very small. Some consist of only 2 different screens, which is kinda disappointing. When it comes down to it, deciding to design the game around this very naval theme was an interesting idea, but they couldn't pull it off just quite right. Exploring the waters of the Island Nations is kinda fun at first, but you'll grow bored of it halfway through the game.

 Strategic battles have been changed, no longer are they boards, and no longer are battles automatic, now you fight with ships! Before each fight you can outfit your ships with different characters to enhance their resistance or change the type of cannonballs they carry. Certain elemental cannonballs beat other elemental cannonballs, so you don't receive damage and they do, the same elements cancel each other and elements without direct-relation ignore each other and both combatants receive damage. It's really fun, although you ought to be careful since characters might die on this battles, and that would lock you out of the true ending.

 Despite all the focus on sailing, you will have to go through small dungeons every now and then. Sadly, you are restricted to four-man parties, which is kinda disappointing considering the huge amount of playable characters. Battles work more or less just as they did in 3, but without skills. They follow the traditional turn-based scheme and characters can equip different runes, which translate into the spellsets they will bring to battle. There're also combo-attacks between related characters and a new 'Rush' command that heals the leader and performs AoE damage. All in all, it's fun, if nothing out of the ordinary. You'll also engage in 1 on 1 duels every now and then, which work like rock-paper-scissors.

  As per usual, if you want to, you can gather up to 107 different characters to join your cause. Some will aid you in battle, some will give you perks inside your ship and some... do nothing. In this front, the game feels rather weird, since every now and then you'll be able to recruit characters in bulk, a lot of them are given to them for free, and some of them don't do ANYTHING at all. It's as if they didn't know what to do with them or how to spread them. It doesn't help that the game is very short, if you don't indulge in sidequests, you'll probably be able to finish it in under 20 hours.

 Suikoden IV is rather... quirky. It has some very fun moments, it has some quirky moments, it has some weird design choices but it also has some original ideas... it's a mixed bag of elements that don't mesh too well together, but when they work, they work. Some of its worst features try to drag the game down, but it's better parts make it fun to play despite it all.
 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Suikoden IV

 Suikoden Black Flag?

 Since Shadow Hearts 1 hasn't arrived yet, and I need to play something instead of, y'know, studying for tomorrow's test, I decided to start Suikoden IV.

 The new water-ship motif is interesting to say the least, it feels very... I want to say unique, but it actually brings back memories of Assassin's Creed IV - Black Flag, guess the '4' in the title is no coincidence! But I digress! What I meant to say was that among JRPGs, this water motif makes it rather unique, particularly since the characters aren't pirates, but knights!

 I know this one is considered the black sheep of the series, but having played little over 30 minutes, I rather like it! The downgrade to four-man parties will probably be disappointing once I more characters though! I'm digging the battles, however, spells come out much faster. I also like the fact that you start off at level 1, I hate when RPGs have you starting out at other levels!

 All in all, I'm feeling hopeful, Suikoden IV seems fun.

Month Overview: April 2017

 Tally:
Suikoden III 8.0
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 9.0
The Hobbit 6.5
Transformers - Devastation 7.0
Vexx 6.0
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland 8.0
Sonic Heroes 2.5
Koudelka 8.0
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam 4.5
Star Wars Episode 1 - Jedi Power Battles 3.5
Super Bust-a-Move 4.0
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 6.0
Wild Arms 5.5
Dead to Rights 8.0
Bionicle 3.0
Wild Arms - Alter Code: F 4.5


 Boy, oh boy did I play a LOT this month. plenty of stinkers, like Sonic Heroes and Jedi Power Battles, but also more than a fair share of fantastic games. I'm well on my way to finishing the entire Suikoden, Wild Arms and Tony Hawk franchises this year!


Game of April 2017:

 Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is so good. SO GOOD. The amount of tools you are given in this game makes playing around a blast. It also has some of the best levels in the entire franchise, as well as, probably, my favorite goal-set-up of any Tony Hawk game, letting you clear things at your leisure as you unlock more characters and the such. I can't get tired of Underground 2, it did everything a Tony Hawk's game should do right.

Runner-up:

 It's surprising how well this game has aged, considering it's a third person shooter on a console. The action is plentiful, and there's a ton of ways to make dispatching enemies look exciting. I can't wait to get a hold of the sequel-prequels!

Review #391: Wild Arms - Alter Code: F

 What a missed opportunity...

 Wild Arms is pretty darn mediocre. Wild Arms 2 was pretty great. Wild Arms 3 was bloody fantastic. The original game is more of a case of having aged relatively poorly, particularly in comparison with its sequels, which only got better and better. Alter Code: F is Wild Arms 1 running on Wild Arms 3's engine, what could go wrong? A lot.

 The story is pretty much the same as Wild Arms 1, which I wrote about previously, so there's no point for me to write the same blurb. That said, the remake's strongest feature is the new retelling. Sure, the translation is as bad, sometimes even worse, as the original game's, but they added more dialogue which adds more depth to villains as heroes alike, as well as better explaining some of their motivations and ideals. The plot twists are better set up as well, making them more impactful and interesting. The new facelift also does wonders to how the game tells the story. There's no denying it, as far as the story goes, this one's got beat the original by a landslide. The game also makes playable Jane and Emma, as well as a certain other character, but the only join the party at the end of the game, so you'll only use them for the bonus boss fights, if you decide to tackle them.

 The first thing that will catch you by surprise is that they did away with equipment. Equipment is one of the most fun aspects of an RPG, the promise of finding rewards inside dungeons, or buying new equipment and growing stronger. That's gone. Sure, Wild Arms 3 didn't have equipment either, but you could equip guardians with abilities and then equip these Guardians to your characters, plus, you could customize all four characters' weapons, so they grew stronger as you went along. The only way to increase your attack power is by leveling up. You can customize your characters by finding and equipping Skills, but they are not as varied as Wild Arms 3's(None increase Attack power!) or as rewarding to use. You must farm for repeat Skills if you want to increase its level on a character. Laaaaaaaaaaaaame.

 No way to increase your attack power means that you'll be underpowered pretty much all the way throughout, which means that random encounters can take a while. You can use spells and abilities to do more damage, but these run on limited resources, and pretty much the only way to replenish them is by sleeping at an Inn or leveling up. Eventually your level will grow so high that counting on level ups will be impossible, so get ready to tough it out! The cherry on top is that the encounter rate in this game is ridiculously high.

 The game borrows WA3's Migrant system, so you can dodge random encounters at the cost of some gauge from the migrant seal. Problem: Encounters are plentiful, so it will run out, and if you decide to skip too many of them, enemies will simply ambush you, which is unavoidable. You can equip a few items to prevent ambushes, but EVERY single member of the party needs to equip it, else it won't work. Oh! And you CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM BATTLES. Well, you can, there's a spell to escape, but that means wasting a precious Crest on such a dumb spell. Basically, the game wants you to fight lots of random encounters, since the encounter rate is so high and enemies will eventually ambush you, but that means spending MP and cartridges, so you'll run out of resources for bosses. And while you can count on level ups, once your level reaches 40 this won't be such a simple commodity. It's so stupid!

 Let's talk about the enemies for a bit. While this game is a remake of Wild Arms 1, most random encounters are borrowed from Wild Arms 3! Oh, and enemies LOVE inflicting status effects on your party, luckily you have spells. Wrong. For whatever reason, YOU CAN'T USE SPELLS OUTSIDE OF BATTLES. What where they thinking?? If I have the goddamn MP, let me use the goddamn spell! At least items are relatively cheap, but run out of them, and you will since it seems as if enemies only want to inflict status effects on you, and you're screwed. Brilliant. Don't even let me get into the fact that every area of the game features 3 enemy types at most. AT MOST. I'm absolutely speechless.

 Now let me segway into Wild Arms 3, a game I've mentioned a lot and the game it shares an engine with. It's true, you can't use healing spells outside of battles as well... But Wild Arms 3 has an excuse: Everything runs on FP, a limitless resource that's gained and spent during battle. There's also the fact that you can increase your attack power pretty easily, so you can make short work of random encounters: They don't take nearly as much time nor resources. I popped Wild Arms 3 for a bit in order to compare, and even the Encounter Rate is more lenient.

 Back to Wild Arms Alter Code: F, did I mention that they kept some of the most annoying parts from Wild Arms 1? Remember all those moments in which the game basically told you to 'Go explore every town and hope to find your next objective'? They kept them. And this game uses the Sonar/Radius system from Wild Arms 2 and 3, so you have to find towns yourself on the overworld, and they won't show on the map until you talk to the single right NPC on the correct town that will tell you about its location. Fun. At least in the original game you could come across dungeons and towns by yourself.

 As not to end on such a negative note, I can at least praise the new puzzles. As per Wild Arm's norm, while inside dungeons you will have to do a lot of puzzling while using various different tools, four for each main character, for a total of 12. In the original game, these puzzle felt more like obstacles 'Oh, a flame, put it out with the vase', this time around they are proper puzzles, and some will put your brain to the test. The combat was kept more or less the same, it's still turn based, and characters can use items, perform normal attacks or perform spells/shots(Shots consume cartridges and spells consume mana). There's also the FP mechanic, which increases as you deal and take damage and lets you use even stronger skills.

 Wild Arms - Alter Code: F started oh so promising, but it quickly turned into a tedious borefest. It's hard to have fun with it when the game is constantly trying to waste your time with continuous, endless amount of needlessly taxing random encounters, marred with poor design choices that work only to vex the player. I wish I could tell you that this game was the way to go with Wild Arms 1, but I can't.
 4.5 out of 10

Review #390: Bionicle

 A hour-long snoozefest.

 You've heard the name Bionicle before, you simply did, no matter who you were or what your age was. Bionicle was kind of a big deal for Lego, and it quickly became a story-drive toy franchise that delved into other forms of multimedia. Not only is this game a tie-in with the toys, it's also a tie-in with the direct-to-dvd movie, oh boy, are we in for a ride!

 The game, supposedly, follows the story of the Mask of Light movie, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the plot. On the first two stages you collect two colored masks which triggers a cutscene in which said masks fuse...? with other colored masks and the protagonists transform because reasons. And then, in subsequent levels, you find even more of these masks. I don't even. Maybe if you are invested in the franchise you'll get the gist of most of the story, since it uses a lot of in-universe terms which were enigmas to me, and if you've seen the movie you'll probably make sense of the whole ordeal. Regardless, the entire game can be beat in just an hour or so.

 The game is a 3D platformer some times, most times maybe? In an effort to add variety, every stage has some sort of gimmick or style. The first level is your standard, dull 3D platforming stage featuring the Toa of Fire. The next level makes you play as the Toa of Ice, skating down an icy slope. Afterward the characters turn into the Toa Nuva, and you'll be playing as the Toa Nuva of Water alternating 3D platforming and awkward swimming sections. The next level is a minecart on-rails stage as the Toa Nuva of Earth. The Toa Nuva of Rock comes next and he has a 3D platforming stage that requires you to push things on top of switches, which is pretty wonky. The Toa Nuva of Air has the worst and most annoying level in the entire game, featuring choppy gliding mechanics and terrible vine-swinging segments. The second-to-last level pits you as the Toa Nuva of Fire on a race of sorts against an enemy, and the final level is a boss fight against Makuta, playing as the Toa of Light.

 Moving around and jumping around works decently, there isn't any depth or complicated maneuvers, but it works well. The gimmicks are pretty bad though. It's easy to mis-judge your jumps with vines, and some of the gliding segments are hard to land, thank god for unlimited lives! The pushing mechanics in the Toa Nuva of Rock's stage is laughably bad, pushing something has never been so choppy, and the entire boss fight is made up of you awkwardly pushing stones on top of vents. The camera is pretty bad too, although, to be fair it never got me killed. Something I found fascinating was how short levels were... yet how long they felt because of how boring and bland they were! The art direction was pretty neat, levels are nice to look at, and, maybe, if they had spent their time polishing the platforming and level design and did away with gimmick stages, we could've had a more decent game!

 Look at how badass these Toas look with their weapons! It's a shame they don't use them in lieu of shooting energy from them. How awesome would've it have been to have them slash and dice their way through stages!... but seeing how bland everything is, it's probably for the best that they went with simplicity. Circle shoots energy, and it usually lands on target thanks to automatic targeting. Your energy bolts run on energy, and once depleted you have to hold square to charge it back... or wait for an enemy to shoot and put up your shields in order to absorb it. Whichever the case, you'll have to wait, either for your energy to recharge or for the enemy to attack. For what it's worth, the combat system is kinda ingenious, absorbing energy from enemies in order to recharge your own weapons and the such. It's probably the game's best feature, but it's bogged down due to how easily enemies are dispatched, not requiring much thought or planning.

 Bionicle is not a good game. It's terrible at its worst and it's subpar at its best. That said, I think, I think that it might be an entertaining game for its target demographic: Little children. Although, even now I can remember how disappointed I was when I was younger that you didn't get to play as every Toa on foot. Look, even if you're a fan of the franchise, if you're older than 8, this game is a pass.
 3.0 out of 10