Now Playing: Spider-man - Mysterio's Menace

 A two-fer-one

 Mysterio's Menace was a game I used to play back when the GBA was all the rage. I distinctly remember this game because I'd play it a lot after returning home from highschool.

 I've played a level, Pier 54, and it was alright. Spider-man's punch range is pathetic, enemies are very cheap and can easily score hits on the wall-crawler, which is kind of annoying. I love the fact that you can upgrade Spider-man by finding object throughout the game. It seems like a mixed bag of good and bad things.

Now Playing: Spider-man(PS2)

??????????????

 Seriously, what the hell? The smooth framerate is nice and dandy, but why the hell are the controls so... unresponsive and the movement so... wonky? I finally have control over the camera, but it's pretty slow and I can't snap it behind my back with L1, which was a terrible design choice.

 And don't even let me get started on the swinging, why is Peter constantly rising over the sky? It looks silly and dumb. I don't know if you can tell, but it's not shaping up to be a good one...

Review #407: Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro

 Does it weave a sturdier web?

 Spider-man on the PS1 was pretty good, regardless, Activision handed the rights and the engine to Vicarious Visions and had them churn away a sequel. Surprisingly, it doesn't falter at the hands of another developer, yet made up of both enhancements and detriments when compared to the previous game.

 The big bad this time around is Electro, joined together by Hammerhead, Shocker and Sandman, with the appearance of The Lizard for good measure. It does have a better, more in-character story than the previous game, hosting Electro and his quest for power, but it's still not a selling point when it comes to this game, you're in it for the fantastic depiction of Spider-man in 32-bits.

 Running on the same engine, the game plays pretty much the same way as the previous game, granting the player a very functional Spider-man that can stick to walls and ceilings, swing with his web, punch, kick and throw his enemies as well as certain objects, and use his web to tie his enemies, hit them with impact web, throw them around, enhance his punches or create a protective shield over himself. Spider-man can do a lot of stuff and it's fun to pull off, it's a great engine for the character and it works well. The camera seems to track Spider-man better than the previous game, but my gripes with reversing controls when wallcrawling remain in this game.

 The game looks better, character models are more detailed(Spidey's suit has its black webbing now!) and animations are better, just look at Spidey's crawling animation or his kicks. Levels are bigger, which usually means more fun, but there're no checkpoints and dying means having to redo an even larger level which might be a bit annoying depending on the level. I glitched through the floor as well once, fun times.

 There's a lot of level variety, and they did away with the previous game's chase sequences, which is a bonus on my book. That said, there're a few clunkers, like the level in which you have to stop the play, since until you understand how to do it, it'll leave to a lot of quick-losses and long loading times in-between retries. The 'The Gauntlet' level is particularly boring, consisting of a tower that must be climbed as you go through repeated obstacles. Basically, it has a few better levels than the best from Spider-man 1, but it also has a few worse levels than its worst.

 The game features about twice the amount of costumes, and they can be customized to add perks or handicaps which I felt was a fantastic idea. There's a new 'Training Mode' which... is kinda superfluous to be honest, but at least it's there, right?

 When it comes down to it, the good overweights the bad as far as comparing it to the previous game goes, but only by a tiny margin. Both games are very good Spider-man games that do the character and the license justice.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro

 Shocking.

 I hadn't played Spider-man 1, but it wound up being pretty dope. Now, Enter Electro I'm familiar with, I had played this game quite a handful of times way back when, and I had a blast with it.

 First thing I did: Costumes cheat. I like playing with different costumes, particularly with Ben's Scarlet Spider costume, and this time around you can take away the perks or handicaps, so I can finally use the Spider-man 2099 costume(Since I mean to play as legit as possible). Also, I liked how they redid a few scenes from the first game but with newer and better character models.

 The first level was a retread from Spider-man 1's albeit during the afternoon, and it felt... tighter? It's hard to explain why, but I think they were more mindful of how Spidey moved and his jumping worked when designing distances and what not between buildings. Suffice to say, it felt better.

 As for the second level, at first I thought it was kinda crappy how much it had you going around in circles trying to trigger the next 'event', but... I think it was done on purpose. There were few, if any, stages as open as this one in the first game, and it let you play around with Spider-man's movement. You are free to go around, getting used to swinging and swing-cancelling at your leisure, so even if it wasn't made on purpose... it works great.

 It's too early for a better assessment, but the game's shaping up to be either more of the same or more but a little better, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

Review #406: Spider-man(PS1)

 Here comes the Spider-man!

 As I've said in my first impressions entry, I'm pretty sure that this was the first game to be both a great game and a game that made the most out of the Spider-man license. This is a stage-based linear action game that puts you in the boots of Spider-man, web-slinging in-and-out of trouble, fighting popular villains and doing everything a spider can.

 The game offers a healthy selection of baddies: Doc Ock, Rhino, Mysterio and even Venom, alongside cameos of super heroes like Black Cat, Captain America, Punisher and Daredevil. Just don't think too hard about how they behave in the game, as there's a few out-of-character moments, particularly Venom who's been dumbed down, literally. The story is pretty focus on the symbiotes, but it does a good job of shoe-horning in every baddie for you to fight them, which in a licensed game and of its era, it's pretty neat. Regardless, you won't be playing this game for its story, that's for sure, but rather for the fanservice.

 And the fanservice isn't just cosmetics, Spider-man can stick to almost every surface and crawl around, he can web-sling through the air, web his enemies, create a dome of web, add webbing to his fists in order to increase damage as well as lift some objects and throw them around, in case you don't want to just grab your enemies and throw'em or punch'em. There's a very wide slew of actions that Spider-man can perform, which is nothing short of fantastic, and the game does a fantastic job of making you feel like the wall-crawler. There's this section in the beginning in which you must infiltrate a building and save the hostages, and it felt so good to crawl through the roof, webbing enemies from above before they knew what struck them!

 While it works fine for the most part, there were a few chinks in the design. Sometimes when zipping straight to a roof can invert your controls, which isn't too much of an issue 'till you find yourself in timed stages, like stalking Venom or the end-game's chase sequence. It can really throw you off and force you to restart the entire stage. The camera is a bit lackluster as well, while you can tap L1 to shift it behind you, it doesn't do a good job of following behind Spider-man by itself. The controls also show a few problems when trying to get specific type of web attacks to come out or to aim, like the Mysterio fight which had me throwing Impact webbing at thin air. Luckily, none of these issue ruin the game.

 The game offers a hearty challenge on its default difficulty, you will probably have to retry a few stages until you figure out how to deal with obstacles or enemies. There're aren't many puzzles, besides figuring out how to defeat a few bosses, but what few puzzles there were were pretty neat. Fulfilling certain conditions, or using cheats, lets you unlock costumes, of which there're plenty and they are pretty cool, I just wish they didn't come with secondary bonuses(Or handicaps!) since I really wanted to use the Spider-man 2099 costume but I didn't want extra strength!

 Spider-man on the PS1 is pretty darn great, while it's no longer 'the best super-hero game' out there, it's still got it. This game is easy to recommend even if you don't like Spider-man. And if you do like it, don't expect too much out of its story besides excuses to have you fight all the various villains. I mean, J. J. Jameson calls Peter and tells him to call 911, like, what the hell??
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man

 Neversoft struck gold. Again.

 Neversoft once again prove their worth, not only did they create the ultimate Skating game for its time, they also made the ultimate Spider-man game. Y'see, before Neversoft arrived, Spider-man games came in two flavors, either they:

A) Were good games, like Separation Anxiety or the Arcade game, but at the cost of being a bit more... 'generic' when it came to mechanics, only using the most basic of Spider-man's abilities.

or

B) Were Spider-man games, like Spider-man and X-men or Spider-man VS the Sinister 6, which were built around Spider-man's unique abilities... but weren't good games.

 Spider-man on the Playstation manages to be both a fantastic game and an Spider-man game. Like, Spider-man's got so many abilities, and they are simple to get the hang of. I've gotten up to the helicopter raid escape and I've been having a blast. I have very fond memories of Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro, so it'll be interesting to see which game has aged better.

 As to why I started Spider-man? I'm 10 hours into Shadow Hearts 3 so I decided to take a little break from all the turn based battles, plus, I'm running out of space on my Spider-manathon shelf, so might as well start now!

Now Playing: Shadow Hearts - From the New World

 It's... it certainly is different.

 Koudelka was pretty good. Shadow Hearts 1 and 2 were pretty darn amazing. From the New World is... different. Just the opening scenes lets you know that this is gonna be a very different game, in tone. The first part of the game takes place during the day, there's no threat of war or what have you, and the protagonist is very happy go lucky. And the very first opening moments have a sexy woman getting naked just because Japan is Japan and go forbid a woman doesn't show her assets.

 I got through the first dungeon, and it's alright. I find it interesting how Johnny is kind of a weakling, I got so used to Yuri and his 3-attack judgement ring, how he'd have SP for days and what not, but Johnny feels like a glorified Anastasia, with his silly 'Snap' ability, 1-hit judgement ring and low SP threshold. It's an interesting change!

 So far, I'm not very hopeful. I think the most probable scenario is me liking the game because it's fun, but not being able to enjoy it as much as previous Shadow Hearts since every single horror element, sans demons, is gone.

Review #405: Hidden Invasion

 The hidden invasion of bad games.

 Welcome to 'How not to make a beat'em up 101'. That's the fastest and easiest way to describe this travesty.

 You pick your character, generic dude bro cop or generic sexy woman cop and must battle the aliens that managed to invade earth and take control of most of the population. Both characters play more or less the same, but at least their cutscenes get different voice overs and both characters change clothes three times throughout the entire, and mercifully short, adventure. There's a two player mode, in case you're a dick and want to sucker someone into enduring this with you.

 Both characters can punch, kick, grab, shoot and grenade their way through endless waves of enemies, but you'll quickly find out that the best ways to deal with enemies is using their own guns or exploiting the overpowered grabs and throws. And why wouldn't you? Enemies respawn constantly, gang up on you constantly and love to get in some cheap hits when you're busy. Bosses can be particularly annoying when playing by yourself, since enemies may respawn infinitely even during boss fights.

 You'll be permanently under a timer for no reason whatsoever besides pissing off the players, and while I never ran out of time, it's a needless annoyance. Usually you'll be given a compass to guide you on where to go next, but it's absolutely useless and changes direction more often than the camera. Oh, the camera is absolutely nuts, it changes angles ever 2-3 steps which messes with the controls and how you're moving, so you might get stuck between angles until you figure out how to deal with the controls.

 That's got nothing on the numerous bugs and glitches though! Certain enemies have the ability to 'lock' your progression until you kill them, kinda like older beat'em ups in which the scrolling would freeze until you defeated every enemy. Well, turns out that some of these enemies can move you by moving away from you and thus moving the 'invisible wall'. It's particularly prevalent during stage 2, in which enemies would move by position as they fell down when I shot at them! And this one time, one of these 'screen lock' enemies decided to escape away from me, moving me around until it finally got me stuck on a crate, leaving me unable to progress. Fun.

 Avoid Hidden Invasion. I know, it's very tempting since the game is dirt cheap, I got my copy for 2 bucks. 2 bucks! But not even the multiplayer mode is worth it. Not only is the game not fun to play, it's also filled with bugs, glitches and inconsistencies, it's not even 'so bad it's good' bad. This game is better left off hidden in the annals of history... for our own sake.
 2.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Hidden Invasion

 This game is a joke.

 I hope you don't have motion sickness, because boy oh boy is this game a trip! The camera is absolutely insane, bonkers! You can't walk half a mile without the camera shifting and screwing up your movement. I also LOVE how enemies respawn constantly, and they love to throw stuff at you, knives, batons, bullets, you name it!

 It's horrible, horrible! What a bad, bad game.

Review #404: Jersey Devil

 The hero we deserve, not the one we need.

 Jersey Devil is a pretty obscure 3D platform game released exclusively on the Playstation 1. Starring the Jersey Devil himself, a little anthropomorphic animal styled like a nightly super hero, not unlike Darkwing Duck, that must do battle with Dr. Knarf, a pretty basic premise to outline the entirety of the game. The game is also prefaced by a beautiful 2D animation detailing how JD and Knarf first met. As a matter of fact, the game deserves some praise for the presentation, everything looks as if it came straight out of an animated show.

 There're 12 levels as well as four bonus levels. In each level you must destroy all Nitro Boxes in order to increase your 'power'(Does nothing for gameplay) and be able to enter the bonus levels, as well as save every hostage(2 per level, they do nothing but add to your completion level). Of course, if you can't be bothered you may as well just ignore both as the game can be finished ignoring either anyways. There're six worlds, with two stages each(not accounting for the four bonus stages), and it's usually one long stage followed by a shorter stage. Each level has a boss too, and they are relatively decent, since a few may require a bit of thinking.

 Jersey Devil has the most basic of movesets, he can jump, glide, punch, spin-attack and lift-and-throw boxes. The combat is pretty wonky, since enemies have weird invincibility frames during certain animations and JD's punch range is pathetic, so it's better to just spam your jumping spin attack and hope for the best. The jumping fares much better, while the physics behind jumping and gliding don't feel quite right, it works... when you're not going through platforms, which is a rare occurrence, but frequent enough as to be worth mentioning. Some things that may look like stuff you can stand on may just be decoration you can simply go through, and the camera does you no favors, while you can move it around with L2 and R2, it's pretty slow, and very rarely, the camera will also get in your way. The second slides level was a bit glitchy too, one of the slides threw me into the void three-four times, so I opted for an alternate route.


 Weirdly enough, JD will autojump whenever you get close to the edge of a ledge, which is annoying. The jump may throw you off and get you killed, or it may screw up with the jump you were planning to make, thus getting you killed again. And die you will, a lot. There're a lot of ways to die instantly, but the game is very, VERY generous with lives, I finished the game with over 70 lives to spare.

 I wish I could say that Jersey Devil is a 'hidden gem', but it's way too rough around the edges. What I can say, however, is that the game was left crying for a sequel that fixed everything, because Jersey Devil is a fantastic foundation for something else. A likeable, if a bit generic, cast of characters, a fantastic art direction and gameplay that needed refinement but works relatively well already. But alas, it wasn't meant to be...
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Jersey Devil

 A super hero with horns.

 Jersey Devil's a game I've been interested in for the longest time and today, for the first time in my life, I got to play it. I've played a small section of the first level, and it's alright. It lacks the oomph that other mascot platformer games of its era have, and the jumping doesn't feel quite as good, but I think it's got a very interesting premise, and a very neat character. And the opening animation was brilliant.

 Here's to hoping that the game maintains this level of quality and doesn't dip, because I think we may have a fun little romp in our hands.

Review #403: Midway Arcade Treasures 3

 More like Arcade antiques, am I right?

 Midway Arcade Treasures 3 was the final compilation they released on PS2, this time focusing on Racing games. While this offering only housed 8 games, it features more modern, heavier games than previous volumes. It's also the only volume to focus on a single genre, whether that's a good or bad thing depends entirely on your taste.

 What I discovered while playing some of these games for the first time and replaying others is that... most of these haven't aged well, and most of them are good for arcade releases, but will feel lacking in content if held to console game standards. Also, most of the games were meant to be played with a steering wheel-type joystick, so the analog stick doesn't work quite as well due to the sensitivity of the steering.

 Super Offroad and Super Offroad track pack: An isometric four-player racing game, it's rather fun for what it is, and it's got a nice upgrade system that lets you enhance different parts of your vehicle after each race. Tracks start repeating after a while, sometimes having you race in the opposite direction, and controls are rather sluggish. The track pack is basically the same gameplay but on different tracks.
 5.0 out of 10

 Race Drivin is a very primitive 3-D first-person driving game. It's slow and clunky to a nigh unplayable degree. The game is nice to have as a curiosity of what the earliest days of 3-D were like, but as a game it's terrible.

 1.0 out of 10

 Badlands is, basically, Super Offroad on a post-apocalyptic setting. The same enhancement system is here, but now you can shoot against other racers.

 5.5 out of 10

 I think S.T.U.N. Runner could've been a fun game if only the hadn't botched the emulation on the PS2 version of this compilation. Basically the game runs faster, WAY faster than intended, which makes certain obstacles pretty much unavoidable. It's a bit different from other games, although you are being timed, you can only steer left and right to avoid obstacles, there's no acceleration button, and you also get to shoot at obstacles ahead of you. It's an interesting game, and it's possibly fun when running as intended. Possibly.

 3.0 out of 10

 Now we get into the good stuff, starting off with San Francisco Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition, yeah, the title is quite a handful. You've probably got good memories about the game, but, sadly, it hasn't aged very well. Handling feels very clunky, and the once oh-so-fun physics now feel a bit wonky. There're 7 different tracks, and they are a pleasure to look at... sadly, the music is awful, just awful. And the sound design is absolutely terrible, the screeching tires will make your ears bleed. It's particularly grating since laps are rather long, and in between the annoying music and the horrible tire sounds... let's just say that extended play sessions will take a toll on the player.

 6.0 out of 10

 I had never played Offroad Thunder before, heck, I had never even heard of it, but boy was I pleasantly surprised! It features three different modes, which are basically all just variations of racing with a flag gimmick or a point based gimmick, that can be played on the same 8 tracks. Speaking of those, the courses are brilliantly designed, discovering them was quite a treat. The game does suffer from some hefty slowdown though.

 7.0 out of 10

 The bad news is that this is not an arcade perfect port of San Francisco Rush 2049, the good news is that this is a port of the Dreamcast enhanced port of said game. This means more modes, more tracks, more everything even a fun little multiplayer battle mode. Not only does this game look better than San Francisco Rush, it also looks better, sounds, plays better and smoother too. There're only six tracks total, with two being unlockable, but you can customize a lot of parameters, like number of laps, fog, wind or even if you want to race through the track the other way around. Rounding this up, you can also customize various parts of your car to personalize its stats, looks and style. San Francisco Rush 2049 is pretty good! Very skimpy on content, but very replayable.

 7.5 out of 10

 And lastly, the crown jewel of this collection, Hydro Thunder, and once again, we get the Dreamcast port of the game, which adds a few new tracks for a total of 12. The game plays like a dream, you must course through water and sea, collecting boost icons trying to beat all 15 other races. Tracks are gated behind how you perform in races, get Top 3 on all easy tracks to unlock medium, get top 2 on those to get hard tracks, etc. Sadly, this also means that if you're not good at the game, or don't care to get good at it, like me, you won't get the final 7 tracks, oh well! Hydro Thunder is a blast to play, and it's the best all-around package.

 7.5 out of 10

 If you ask me, how much mileage you'll get out of this compilation is directly tied to how much nostalgia these games manage to get out of you. A lot of the games simply haven't aged very well, some are better off left as curiosities, and the even a few the best games are lacking in depth and/or content.

 7.5 out of 10

Review #402: Tony Hawk's Underground

 It's been quite the ride, filled with bails and nails.

 It's interesting how everyone's got their own favorite Tony Hawk game, huh? Starting with 2 up to Underground 2, each game and those in-between have their own collective of people that consider it the best in the series, heck, even American Wasteland's got a few! Underground 1 marked quite a change for the series, now a story mode surrounding your created skater would become the norm, and it introduced the ability to get off your board, a godsend!

 The game features the usual assortment of modes: Story, in which you follow your created skater's story as he deals with Eric Sparrow's antagonizing shenanigans over and over and over again. The story is surprisingly fun, and Eric is a character you'll learn to despise, making for an engaging villain of sorts. Free Skate is back, of course, and so is the usual gamut of multiplayer modes. Besides creating a character, there's a new 'create a trick' menu, but it's not too in-depth and I didn't really care about it.

 For as amusing as the story is, the mode itself is a bit lacking in polish. There're a bunch of car driving missions, which while not annoyingly hard, certainly are a bit of a bore. The controls are sluggish, the driving feels awful, the stages were not meant for cars and the missions are uninteresting, luckily they did away with these in future installments. There were a few too many 'Find X amount of Y' missions for my liking, it even seeped into other missions like 'Find X and perform Y trick next to them', you don't even get a compass, so they are timed scavenger hunts, kinda like the older Tony Hawk games.... of which I'm not that much of a fan and it's worse since these stages are quite large. The challenge is finding the stuff, not performing it, it's not fun, it's not challenging.

 What it does get right are the new additions and how stats work. Stats are gated behind challenges that you must perform, like grinding for 8 seconds in order to enhance your grind, and these challenges are gated behind story progression. This makes sure that you won't be too overleveled for current tasks, which is fine, while also having, in my opinion, the most fun way to increase your stats. As for the ever growing pool of moves, tricks and techniques, we've got getting off your board, which lets you easily reposition yourself as well as wallplanting, by pressing X and down when going towards a wall, which serves not only as a way to extend your combos but to avoid losing one if you would've hit the wall.

 I think Underground deserves to get praised for all that it brought to the series. Whether you like it or not, having an actual story became a focus point on the series, which I liked, and the new mechanics, getting of your board and bouncing off walls would become some of the best tools to get around levels or extend combos, with creativity and ingenuity. That said, for as much as the game meant for the future of the franchise, I do think that Underground 1 is a bit lackluster, but entirely enjoyable.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Tony Hawk's Underground

 I played the best, now comes the rest.

 Well, I left Tony Hawk's Underground last since I wanted the last Tony Hawk game I played to be one of the bunch that followed the style I liked most.

 My initial impressions are pretty good, as with Tony Hawk's Underground 2, you develop skills by performing 'challenges', but unlike American Wasteland's dumb limitations, gating them behind story progression is actually a good idea.

 But the best thing about this game, which I guess I took for granted in future games, is getting off your board, man, is that a game changer. Well, maybe not a 'game changer', but certainly something that could've come in handy before!

 All in all, it's Tony Hawk, the kind I like!

Review #401: Gungrave

 Ain't no rest for the wicked.

 Let's be honest, you've never ever heard of Gungrave, have you? A precious little gem in the rough that somehow managed to earn itself an Anime series as well as a much improved sequel. This game mixes Devil May Cry's focus on style with third person shooting and Trigun's Nightow's fantastic art.

 There's not much to the plot, and what little plot there is is there for Beyond the Grave, our hero, to rediscover, as he is suffering from amnesia, a secondary effect from his revival. A mute zombie with a mission, that he is, as he tries to protect Mika, the daughter of the previous big honcho of The Syndicate, who wants her. It's not a particularly interesting plot, but what it lacks in substance it makes up in style. Everything in the game looks cool, the hero, the main villains as well as the cell-shaded graphics slapped with saturated black for shadows, not unlike an american comic book. It makes for quite the treat to watch.

 You will learn to love that square button, as you'll be mashing and smashing it all the way through the end in order to shoot your main means of offence, your twin guns. You can dive sideways, backwards or forwards by pressing X, use the giant coffin Beyond the Grave carries on his back as a melee attack by tapping R1 and triangle to use your special demolition shots. Grave can't take all that much punishment, but he has a regenerating shield that recharges after avoiding taking damage for a very little while, but you're encouraged to keep on getting in the middle of shoot-outs in order to build your combo gauge and amass Demolition Shots. It's a fun, simple, maybe even brain-dead game, but it will take the toll on your thumb thanks to all that square button-pressing.

 But as fun as the game is, it does come with a few little flaws, most which were fixed in the sequel. Controls are fairly sluggish and Beyond moves like, well, a zombie, which may take a little while getting used to, and the camera is sub-optimal, so don't be surprised if you find yourself not know at what you're shooting at since the camera hasn't turned the corner, unlike you... or maybe the game's short draw-distance is hiding enemies away, who knows! Regardless, as well as enemies you'll be fighting slowdown too when it gets too crowded. And while you have four different Demolition Shots available, you can only switch among them by pausing the game, which is a bit dumb. The game only lasts two hours as well, maybe less if you skip cutscenes.

 Gungrave is a fun little game lacking a whole lot in substance but making up for it in spades with style. I have fond memories of the game from when I was younger, and I had a blast playing it this afternoon... but the sequel is oh so much better, and considering you don't really need to know this game's story to play the sequel... I'd advise just skipping this one and getting Overdose.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #400: Suikoden II

 Bigger, badder and better than Suikoden I.

 Suikoden was a fairly unique little JRPG that dealt with themes of politics and war, taking place in a contained region, as opposed to the usual 'defeat the poor attempt at a sympathetic villain, save the world, maybe get the girl' plot that JRPGs love. It had its fair share of unique mechanics and terminology as well as a world that was yearning to be further developed, and then a sequel happened...

 After being sold out by their own forces, Jowy and Riou, two teenagers at the service of Highland's military, become outcasts and become embroiled in a war between nations. There're plenty of poignant scenes, epic battles, epic villains, turns, twists and even flying squirrels. The story is pretty darn fantastic, dealing with subjects of good, evil and what's in-between, having armies duking it out not because of morality, but because of different perspectives. It's a very engrossing story, despite the sometimes spotty translation, and the characters that the game opted to focus on are fairly memorable. There're plenty of returning characters, and if you transfer your old Suikoden savefile, you'll get a few bonus extra lines from them. Luca Blight is the game's only real villain, and what a villain he is, stealing every scene he's in, and the last battle against him is fantastic, and it doesn't even mark the end of the game!!

 The brunt of the game plays like the rest of the games in the franchise: Exploring, duels and strategic battles. As per usual, there're 108 recruitable characters, some will offer passive bonuses to your headquarters, but most of them can be taken into battle. This time around there're up to three different rune slots per characters, so you can customize your spells a lot more, no long must you sacrifice your only rune slot to be able to dash. Heck, you don't need a rune to run this time around anyways! Finding all 108 characters is still nigh impossible without a guide, so do yourself a favor and find one, it's no fun missing out on the best ending because you didn't know that there was only a tiny window of time available to recruit Futch and Humphrey!

 Random encounters play out the same, with a party made up of up to six different units, and they play out in turns, same old, same old. Duels are the same, you must figure out what the enemy is gonna do in a rock-paper-scissors fight according to what they say. Strategic Battles feel more like an SRPG than before: You move each and every individual unit on your army over a map, and then engage in battle or cast spells. It's fairly mundane, and most of these feature a few twists and turns so that they are over pretty fast. Still, be worried, as death of a unit might mean permanent death for some of the defeated characters.

 Do keep in mind that it doesn't matter how you play this game, be it PS1, PS2, PS3 or through emulation, the game will feature audio bugs of different kinds. Most notably, a few songs won't play, ever, even though they are in the disc, so a lot of the strategic battles are fought in complete silence! And while being able to recruit McDohl, Suikoden I's hero, if you have a Suikoden savefile, is a great little bonus, the game will kick him out of the party pretty often, and going back to Gregminster to recruit him again is a pain in the neck that makes it almost not worth it. Almost.

 Suikoden 2 is fantastic. Riou and Jowy's plight to end the war, the different roads they take, the people that gather around them and fate itself will put them at odds with each other. It's an engrossing tale, and the gameplay is a fine tuning of what came before it. While its explosive price was kind of prohibitive, its PSN rerelease means there's no excuse for skipping it.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #399: Suikoden

 War never changes.

 15 years have passed since the liberation of Sol-Falenas, but the world of Suikoden is not a peaceful place, this we shift our attention towards the Scarlet Moon Empire. Tir McDohl, son of one of the greatest generals in the army is the game's hero, who soon comes into contact with one of the 27 True Runes, comes face to face with corruption and must lead the rebel armies against his own kingdom. It's Suikoden alright. While it lacks the layers of depth the rest of the franchise has, the story is pretty darn interesting, and there're more than a fair share of surprising twists and shocks, keeping the player invested all throughout the 20ish hours it takes to complete.

 As with the rest of the franchise, this is a turn-based RPG with three different battle types: When exploring dungeons you'll engage in random encounters, and these turn-based battles are just what you'd expect. Six man parties, unite-attacks between certain units, Runes(Magic) and items. Customization is a bit more limited, understandably since this was the first game in the series, since characters can only equip one rune and one rune only. The inventory is a bit weird as well, each character can carry about 10 items, and that's your total inventory, and while you can swap items around inventories, you can't trade them with other items, so you have to make space in a character's inventory if you want to give them a new piece of equipment for them to equip. It's a bit archaic, but nothing you can't get used to. One of my biggest peeves with the game is how much the game forces certain party members on to you. About 70 of the 108 recruitable characters can be taken into battle, but frequently the game will force you to use specific characters, which means that, most of the time, you've only got two free slots for characters that you actually want to use. Pro tip: Keep Victor and Flik up to date, since they'll be in your party any chance they get, the last dungeon included.

 Strategic Battles are the second mode of battle, and these represent Wars. These are... pretty lame and underwhelming. Basically, you and the enemy choose between Bow, Charge or Magic, and they have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. The worst part about these battles is that party members may die permanently. Then, lastly, we've got duels, which also work with a rock-paper-scissors relationship between Attack, Defend and Special. They lack the excitement that future games would adorn these duels with, but they're inoffensive at worst and amusing at best.

 Basically, Suikoden 1 is quite fun and entertaining, but future games manage to make it feel somewhat outdated. 1 Rune per character, NPCs that sometimes block your way when they move around towns, not being able to run without wasting a rune slot with the Speed rune, less than convenient inventory systems, lame Strategic battles, just 20 hours long etc. Still, the plot is pretty good, which is what matters the most in JRPGs and the battle system is pretty fun, a taste of things to come. It's easy to recommend, just keep expectations in check.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Suikoden II

Time for the big #400!

 It's been a long time coming, but this game marks both my 400th reviewed game as well as my fulfillment of playing one of my most wanted games: Suikoden II. Will it match my expectations as well as its reputation? After finishing Suikoden I I'm quite hopeful it will!

 I've invested but half an hour and the improvements are already showing. You can dash without the speed rune, the graphics have more collor, more animation and better animation as well!

 What an introduction. It was beautiful. The mood was masterfully set before the ambush happened, and they managed to make me feel sorry for the casualties! The music is incredible

Archile's Grab-bag: Spider Edition

 Another day, another package

 Well, a lot of them!

 Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Marvel Ultimate Alliance was pretty dope, I've fond memories of playing this game on the PC and spending hours upon hours on it, so of course I had to get it back!

 Gauntlet - Seven Sorrows: I've heard mostly bad things about this game, but every piece of video footage I've seen about it only served to fuel my interest on this game.

 Jersey Devil: I've been meaning to play Jersey Devil for a long while now, that amazing cover has kept me interested in the game for years on end, and thanks to the age of Youtube, I managed to see gameplay and... It only made me want to play it even more!

 Gungrave: A game from when I was younger, I remember getting this game alongside Marvel VS Capcom 2 back in the day. Gungrave was fun, but it's got nothing on its way superior sequel, regardless, the completionist in me made me want to get the prequel as well.

 Hidden Invasion: I first found out about this game though a videogame magazine, but I was never to interested in it... until one sunday morning I came upon it and bought it on a whim. It was not very good... but fast forward to 2017 and it's dirt cheap, so why the hell not!?

 Gauntlet - Dark Legacy: Gauntlet on the N64 and PS1 was kind of a big deal, magazines were plastered with ads for them... and it took a long while before I was able to finally rent it on the N64. The game didn't meet my expectations, but I also felt like I hadn't been able to spend enough time with it. Dark Legacy is the updated re-release, and I'm willing to give it another whirl now.

 Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PS2): Did I mention how much I liked Ultimate Alliance? Well, the PS2 features and entirely different set of graphics, more akin to the way I played on the PC, so here I am with both PS2 and PS3 versions of the same game!... and maybe there's one more coming...

 Spider-man(GBA): There were two GBA Spider-man games I used to play back in the day, the movie(This) and Mysterio's Menace, and I distinctly liked this one more, albeit I spent more time with the latter. Time to get reacquainted!

 Spider-man 2: Another Spider-man game? That's so weird! Spider-man 2 is a bit of a classic, I bought it when I was younger based on the hype behind it and boy did it deliver! I did enjoy Ultimate Spider-man a bit more though.

 The Amazing Spider-man: Three Spider-man games in a row? What a strange coincidence! Straight to the point: Amazing Spider-man looked, well, amazing, like the proper next-gen free roaming Spider-man game we deserve... and it features Kaine as an alternate costume, I simply had to have this one.

 Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro: Yes, another Spider-man game, but this one has an explanation: I used to play this one when I was younger, it was the second Spider-man game I had ever played(The first one being Vs Sinister 6 on the NES). See? It's all a big coincidence.

 Spider-man: ...or maybe there's an Spider-man Gameathon coming soon...