Review #417: Ultimate Spider-man(Playstation 2)

The King of Swing. Web swing.

 Free from the constraints of movie tie-in-nes, Treyarch were free to use their creative muscle and thus decided to bring the then popular Ultimate Spider-man comic to the world of videogames. Featuring a teenager Peter Parker, the Ultimate universe offered new takes on popular and not-so-popular characters, and this game was set to involve a new and canon plot featuring Venom... but eventually the Ultimate Comics dealt with it in another, more half-assed way.

 The story focuses on Ultimate Peter and Ultimate Eddie Brock, tied together by the experimental organism their fathers left behind after their death. Said organism turns Ultimate Eddie into Ultimate Venom, who is hell-bent on killing Ultimate Peter, but it won't be that easy since other parties want Ultimate Venom for themselves. The story is pretty good all things considered, and is told through beautiful cutscenes that do a fantastic job of emulating a comic book, truly a thing of beauty. The entire game is under a slick coat of cell-shaded paint, aiding further in selling you this out-of-the-comic world.

 While it follows in the footsteps of Spider-man 2 in offering an open world New York for Spidey to swing-in, a lot has been reworked in the game's favor. Swinging feels better than ever thanks to the tweaks the system has received. Holding R2 makes Spider-man stick his web on a building, and will continue to hold on to it until you let go, you can then press Square, to boost, X to jump and gain altitude or triangle to climb your web. It works really well and you'll be swinging through the buildings in no time. Combat has seen the most changes, there's no more evade button, and the Web-head gets back his Kick button, so now you can punch and kick. L2 is used to throw web at enemies, although your options are now more limited as to what you can do to a webbed enemy and no longer can you use his body to hit other baddies. And now you must web fallen enemies unless you want them to get back up again.

 Upgrades now work a little differently too. Spidey's repertoire of moves has been dialed back, but to be honest, it doesn't really matter, I mean, did you ever go for the fancy stuff in Spider-man 2? No, you didn't. So now there're three types of upgrades: Health, Swinging speed and number of attacks. The first is increased by doing Combat Tours, side-missions in which you must defeat various foes. Swinging speed is increased by defeating the Human Torch in a race, which is done by clearing race side-missions and the latter is enhanced by progressing through the story. I kinda miss getting to buy the upgrades, and finishing all combat tours for your health upgrades can be rather tedious.

 Something that may irk some players is that they gated story progression behind busywork yet again. Every story missions requires a certain amount of races and combat tours to be cleared, a certain amount of Tokens(Collectibles hidden throughout the city) and 'City Events'(Random 'quests' that pop up every now and then in which you must defeat enemies, save citizens, etc). I knew that there were unlockable costumes and that they pretty much required you to do a ton of those, so I had all the requirements for every story mission cleared before I decided to begin playing the first story missions, but I can't help but notice how irritating these chores are. And let's be honest, without all that fat the game could pretty much be over in 3 hours. All in all, while I can't say that this bothered me, I know that it's bound to an

 Know what? Every now and then you'll get to play as Ultimate Venom too! He can't swing with his webs, but he can pull off massive jumps, or use his tentacles for a boost of speed. Venom is constantly losing health, but he can feast off enemies... or civilians. Ultimate Venom sections are very short, but they're relatively decent and offer a nice break from the main meat(and fat) of the game. Clearing the game allows you to switch to Venom at any point.

 While the combat may not be as good as it was before, and while I still find a few design choices questionable, the swinging is all kinds of amazing. You can lose yourself just traversing through the city, just for fun! The story and presentation are both fantastic, it's an interesting tale and it feels very in-tune with the source material. Regardless, I still believe that this is a better game than Spider-man 2. It's not perfect, it doesn't do everything better than Spider-man 2, heck, some things are worse, but as a whole, it's a better game.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man - Battle for New York

 A trip to the bathroom turned into another step forward with the Spider-manathon.

 The Ultimate Spider-man were pretty good overall, so naturally when the time came for another Spider-man game, a follow-up was the natural course to take. Surprisingly it didn't see a home console release, but both the DS and the GBA saw their own versions of the game, and since this one uses the same engine from Ultimate Spider-man(GBA) I'm guessing it's gonna be th same for the DS iteration.

 Instead of Ultimate Venom, we now get Ultimate Green Goblin taking the place of the hulking mass of muscle, and hulk indeed, if you squint your eyes you might think it's actually the Hulk, purple pants 'n all. I only got to play two levels, and both had me playing as Ultimate Green Goblin. It's pretty easy to see that it's basically a reskin of the previous game, albeit with a different playable villain.

 Basically, I'm guessing it's gonna be pretty good, worst case scenario, an unremarkable sequel.

Now Playing: Ultimate Spider-man(Playstation 2)

 I might've oversold this game.

 On every chance I could, I wrote about how I remembered Ultimate Spider-man to be this Ultimate game that trumped above Spider-man 2. I might've remembered wrong.

 For starters, the swinging has changed, it's slightly, sliiiiiiiiightly simpler, but I think that as a whole, it's much better. Combat wasn't Spider-man 2's greatest asset, but it worked for the game and the character, the new combat feels more stiff, Spidey's moves just don't flow as well and smacking enemies around doesn't feel as good, and a lot of the fun physics-based-web-slinging-enemies moves you could do are gone.

 Progressing through the game is, once again, locked behind busywork, but I've a feeling that it might be less tedious here. Maybe. Since it requires a number of activities instead of points. Also, costumes are back, thank god, no Spider-man game should be lacking in alternate costumes! Although finding the tokens required is kinda challenging, since they seem to be very well hidden.

 For what it's worth, numerous times throughout this early session I thought to myself 'Alright, gonna quit now and do what I haveta do'... yet I couldn't stop playing through the city. The swinging is so much more fun now!

Review #416: Ultimate Spider-man(DS)

 It's certainly makes a killer first impression.

 Just when things were looking up for the handheld adventures of the creepy crawler comes Ultimate Spider-man on the DS to remind us not to have our hopes held too high.

 Featuring a retelling of the console game of the same name, Ultimate Spider-man follows the story of both Peter Parker and Eddie Brock, Spider-man and Venom respectively, as the sins of their fathers comes to haunt them in the present day. It's easy to tell that you're not getting the entire picture but rather bits and pieces from the home console game's plot, but the presentation is top-notch, featuring great voice-overs and a very stylish cut-scene style, using various stills from the main game's cut-scenes to create facsimiles of comic-book panels. That's called making the most out of your designated console's limitations!

 You'll get to play as both Spider-man and Venom in this 2-D sidescrolling game, and both offer vastly different styles. Spidey can dodge attacks with the L button, punch, kick and use his unlimited webbings to traverse the stage or bind enemies. Landing hits will fill an energy gauge that can be used for a few special moves. His stages are focused on saving civilians, and it kinda sucks. Y'see, you'll be lifting cars or accessing terminals over and over again while having to deal with forced tacked-on touch-screen minigames. Sometimes you have to rescue civilians under arbitrary time limits, I mean, every single rescue is under a time limit, but the timer decreases even once you've picked them up! THEY ARE NOT IN ANY DANGER, THEY CAN'T DIE ANYMORE, SO WHY THE HELL IS THE TIMER STILL GOING ON?? Trust me, the first few times you have to rescue people, it's kinda fun, but these get old pretty soon.

 Then we have Venom, who is constantly losing health, but can feast on any enemy to recover health. Venom's supposed to be played with the touchscreen, but luckily, you can perform most tasks and puzzles with the buttons. That said, holding stuff with tentacles, by tapping the touchscreen, is kinda fun. Kinda.

 There's about 20 stages in all, although in a few instances you'll be allowed to pick between two different stages, and while you can replay previously cleared stages, you cannot pick the levels that you didn't choose, dooming them to remain unplayed unless you start a new file. There's also a multiplayer mode, which I'm guessing is a versus mode, and you can pick between different versions of Peter Parker or Venom, but I didn't have anyone to try it with.

 Ultimate Spider-man on the Nintendo DS can be fun, when it's not being repetitive or forcing me to alternate between touchscreen minigames and buttons at a moment's notice. It's also a bit glitchy, there's a particular roof during the second stage that always catapulted me outside the stage's bounds. It's a definite step forward from Spider-man 2(DS), but if pressed to pick between the handeld iterations of Ultimate Spider-man, the Gameboy Advance one is the clear winner.
 5.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Ultimate Spider-man(DS)

 Now we're finally getting somewhere.

 After the horrible Spider-man 2 DS game I was sure that the handheld games where gonna be garbage, but lo and behold, Ultimate Spider-man Advance was great, and Ultimate Spider-man on the DS is no slouch either!

 While I'd hesitate to call it better than the Gameboy Advance version, this game is pretty fun. It looks beautiful, the production values are high, controls are smooth and the gameplay is pretty decent. It seems Spidey's levels are tied around helping people in need in the allotted time, but you're given hints as to where they lie, so it's all OK. Venom levels are bit duller though, although I'm only judging from the only Venom stage I got to play.

 Well, boys and girls, I think we have a good one here.

Review #415: Ultimate Spider-man(GBA)

 They were bound to get one of them right, right?

 Handheld Spider-man games have been pretty much terrible, but here comes Ultimate Spider-man, ready to right those wrongs. This time around you won't be play as just Spider-man, Venom joins the prey and he is angry.

 The game follows a shortened version from the console game's plot, basically, it deals with Ultimate Peter Parker and Ultimate Eddie Brock's parents, and how their past experiments led to the creation of Venom, a bio-organism that finds itself tied to Ultimate Eddie Brock, turning them into Ultimate Venom. It's a rather interesting story, albeit you only get half the picture playing the handheld iteration of the game. It's seven chapters, and 23 stages long, which is more than fair for a handheld game.

 The game, as with previous handheld Spider-man games, is yet another 2-D scavenger hunt... but done right. Firstly, everything in the levels is very well defined, so it's hard to get lost, and when you have particular objectives, like rescuing hostages, you get a compass. About damn time! It's a very enjoyable romp, and every non-boss stage features an upgrade for either Venom or Spider-man for you to find, going from extra web-cartridges for Spidey, extra moves for either or faster feasting for Venom. It's a blast, and both character offer a very different experience.

 You see, Spider-man is weak, but fast, and is limited by his web-cartridges. And you will need web, as binding enemies with web is one of the safest ways to go around as Spider-man. Venom, however, is a power house. His health is constantly dropping, but unlike Spider-man who must pray for an enemy to drop a health pick up or find one, can feast from any and every enemy, which means every enemy is a health pick up! It helps that Venom can take twice as much punishment and deal even more damage with his basic attacks, although he loses the ability to wrap enemies in webs or swing from webs, he has unlimited tentacle zip-lines for exploration.

 Ultimate Spider-man on the GBA does the impossible and redeems every handheld Spider-man game that came before it. It's a great little game that makes the most out of what you can get out of a handheld 2-D Spider-man game, although there's still room for improvement, things like polishing up the combat, or adding more meat into the experience. Regardless, for what it is, it succeeds.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #414: Shadow Hearts - From the New World

 It's a new Shadow Hearts and a brave new world.

 The Shadow Hearts franchise had proven itself to be a top-notch series of JRPGs for the Playstation brand, and what started as a spin-off turned into the final installment in the series: From the New World. It's... it's a mixture of familiar and new things, of which your mileage may vary depending on what you liked about the series.

 Eurasia was an interesting setting, but now we turned our eyes to North America and South America. You play as Johnny Garland, the game's protagonist... although he only becomes the protagonist on the game's final stretch. After a run-in with the occult, he joins Shania, a Harmonixer that strips down in order to fuse, something that Yuri didn't need to do, because Japan and her bodyguard, a gun-tooting native american named Natan. The cast only gets crazier from there, Mao, a female giant cat that knows drunken kung fu, works for Al Capone and trained Frank, our resident American trained in Brazilian ninjutsu, and then we've got Hilda, the game's resident Vampire who has a slim form, curvy form and a third peach pink bat forms depending on how many calories she sucks from her enemies, and lastly, Ricardo, a Mariachi that plays serenatas for the entire party in order to buff them.

 The game almost never takes itself too seriously, and even when it does, the game relishes in its ridiculousness. Which is a bit disappointing, I loved Shadow Hearts horror elements, and they are almost gone from the game, it seems only bosses show vestiges of its horror roots. The game also tried to make you feel sympathetic towards Lady and Killer, the latter being named simply 'Killer' because he is a Serial Killer... yeah, it didn't really work. It also went full Japan on the fanservice, of which I'm not a fan. The game is almost unrecognizable as a Shadow Hearts game, and the characters weren't very compelling, although the game's final hours are a bit interesting. It's a bit short too, I clocked little under 30 hours, and I did everything in the game except Mao's subquest and even spent some time grinding.

 If you've ever played a Shadow Hearts game you know the deal: Explore towns and dungeons, random encounters, turn-based battles, the Judgement Ring to perform attacks, spells or use items. The Judgement ring is a timing-based mechanics of sorts in which you must press the X button when a marker passes over a highlight area of the ring, if you wish to deal extra damage or even pull off your action entirely. Why change what isn't broken? It works well, it's fun and not even half as tedious as it sounds. It also brings back the customization aspects from Covenant, so each character can have different types of Judgement Rings, enlarge the highlighted areas or add secondary effects to your attacks.

 Spells work a bit differently, now you must find 'Stellar Charts', of which each character can equip one of them, this being charts with different slots in which you can put spells into. Slots have different levels and affinities, so you can't just put spells willy nilly, although you can tweak this slots, for a fee, at the store. It's alright I guess, I think I preferred the crest system, but I've not complaints with the charts. The Sanity system returns: Characters have three gauges, Health, Mana and Sanity, and every turn a point of sanity is lost. Lose all your sanity and your character goes berserk. To be honest, this is the Shadow Hearts in which Sanity mattered the least, I had Johnny, and only Johnny, go berserk once, and only once in the entire game.

 What changed, for the better, was combos. Now characters can store 'Stocks', up to two of them, by attacking or receiving damage. Stocks can be used to pull off combos, so characters no longer need waste a turn, and with it sanity, or stay close together. You just use a stock and boom, combo. Stocks can also be used to perform a double attack, or even a double attack combo. If you play your cards right you can even defeat bosses before they even get a change to do anything! The system is beautiful, but be careful: Enemies run under the stock system too! There're special forms of attacks(Heavy Attacks) that consume stock in order to take away stock from the enemies(Or from you, if an enemy does it!) and even a few spells that steal stocks. You must also think out your combos, since different attacks and spells will change the altitude of your enemy: Air spells won't work on a grounded enemy and ground spells or attacks will miss on a floating enemy. The combat system is easily the best it's ever been thanks to all the different, and fun, mechanics and depth.

 Sidequests are numerous and varied, and every character has his and her own handful to complete. And you should, at least for the characters you use, since it's the only way for them to earn new special moves and their ultimate equipment. That said, a ton of these have been made rather inconvenient. Take the Ring Spirit, the NPC that grants you modifications to add more attacks on the Judgement Ring, now you must bring every Ring Fragment that you find back to New York, whereas in Covenant you just had to find the Ring Spirit and be instantly rewarded. Or Natan's subquests, it's not enough to talk to the NPC once, then you must hunt the UMA, then you must return once again to the NPC for your reward, then you must progress through the story some more and go back to the NPC's location, rinse and repeat. There were a few too many 'Go to A then B then A then C' subquests too. I mean, some of Covenant's quests could be a bit tedious, like the one involving ghosts, but it seems that most From the New World's sidequests are as tedious as those few boring quests from Covenant.

 From the New World was a bit hard for me to fully digest. It's got the best combat system in the franchise, and making combos is a blast, but the story was so forgettable and as amusing and unique as the characters were, I still didn't feel engaged with them, I had a hard time being invested in their plights or shenanigans. Losing almost every horror element was also a tough pill to shallow, everything is so cheery and happy now, even more than Covenant. So many sidequests were annoying too, and as much time as they make you waste the game still ends up being rather short for a JRPG. Still, this is a quality JRPG, it simply falls short of the bar that Shadow Hearts 1 and Covenant set.
 8.0 out of 10