Now Playing: Street Fighter EX2 Plus

 Street Fighter IV before Street Fighter IV.

Ken's got an ugly case of the 'early 3-D' disease.

 God, that cover is ugly. I used to be familiar with the European one, this one:

C'mon, how badass is that?

 Which is so GOOD it ain't even funny. As for the game itself, well, when I was younger there were three PS1 fighters I used to spend hours on end playing: Marvel VS Capcom, Bloody Roar 2 and... Street Fighter EX2 Plus. A few years ago, close to when I started this blog I think, I wrote about EX3 and claimed that it wasn't as good as EX2 and... it wasn't.

 I've played Arcade Mode with three characters already, and boy is it fun. Sure, it's not a particularly good looking game, just compare it with Tekken 3 or, well, Bloody Roar 2, but it tried, it really tried. For starters, veteran Street Fighter characters have new moves or have new animations for older moves that make them look more painful than before. Arika's original characters are hit or miss, but Kairi and Garuda are undeniable badasses.

 Street Fighter usually got flak for not making a good transition into 3-D, but people are wrong. EX2 works and plays as well as any Street Fighter game worth its salt. Granted, it's not as deep or complex as Street Fighter III, but not every game needs to be.

Review #458: Shin Megami Tensei IV

 The perfect example of Atlus' decline.

 While I can't say I've been a fan of Shin Megami Tensei since forever, I can say that I am... or rather was a fan of the franchise. They are fun, dark and grim JRPGs that feature atypical characters and intricate plots. But Atlus has changed a lot, and Shin Megami Tensei IV is a clear example of said change. It attempts to lure in long-time fans of the franchise by looking like Shin Megami Tensei, but it's clearly a game for their new-found Persona fans.

 The game has you playing as a mute hero from the land of Mikado, the land of Samurai, who have learned to muster the power of Demons to protect their city against other Demons. A land stuck in the past, victim to classicism born out of castes. Joining the hero are Walter, a Samurai that came from humble origins, Jonathan, one of the highest caste and the token girl Isabeau. If you know your Shin Megami Tensei you'll already figured out that each companion represents a different alignment: Law, Chaos and Neutrality. As something of a departure from the franchise, all three heroes will be accompanying the main character throughout most of the quest, but sadly, this doesn't necessarily mean more depth. Characters are rather bland, and while the story has some fantastic twists, such as the revelations once you come upon the world below Naraku, they can't hide the fact that characters are walking anime tropes. Which would be understandable if this was Persona, but it is not. Isabeu is far removed from previous heroines, being a walking waifu archetype that loves manga, and Walter and Jonathan's motivations draw from cliched plot devices. Mind you, it's not a bad story by any means, but it falls short of what one would expect from Shin Megami Tensei. Heck, even the art direction suffered, it's hard to take Medusa seriously when she sports the goofiest face I've seen.

 As far as gameplay goes, it plays like most modern Shin Megami Tensei games, using tried and true turn-based battles with the Weakness 'one more' system as well as having the player talk with demons in order to have them join his cause. The Samurai are equipped with an armlet that has an AI named Burroughs that not only lets them manage their roster of demons, but also save their game(How meta) or purchase enhancements, such as healing HP or MP while walking, discounts for summoning demons you've already obtained, bonuses when leveling up demons and many others. Yes, you can save and load your game at any time, as well as lower the difficulty if you so see fit. Dying can be remedied by paying Macca(in-game currency that's rather hard to come by) or Play coins. And you'd think that this is a way to handhold players, and maybe it is, but it's also a bit of a necessity, you see...

 The first 10 or so hours of the game are absolutely grueling because of poor game design. Shin Megami Tensei games have always been challenging, but fairly so. This time around it feels like it's entirely luck based. Something that holds true from the very start to the very end of the game is the fact that whoever gets the first turn will win the battle. Y'see, hitting an enemy with a weakness will give you an extra turn, considering your party is made up of the hero and up to three other demons you can get a total of 8 turns... which the enemy hordes can also earn. The problem is that every spell has a base damage, and even low-level spells dish a ton of damage at a base level, so it's entirely possible to die without having a chance if an enemy caught you by surprise. This also means that a boss that decimated you in one turn, because he had the first turn, can be absolutely demolished in a single turn if you go first. And this happens because who goes first in a boss battle is entirely random. If you hit an enemy with an element it resists then you lose a couple of turns and give the enemy a one-turn boost in damage. Remember how I mentioned that the supporting cast traveled with the main character? Well, they get a turn after your turns, and they are so stupid that it's entirely possible that they will hit the enemy with a spell they are strong against, thus giving them said buff for their next turn. Fun. The first hours are harder because your HP, as well as your demons', is very low, so an enemy hitting a weakness can mean death. So yeah, sure, you can lower the difficulty, save at any time or save yourself from death for price... but they are all there to compensate for how much luck can factor in a battle. It's not easy to recuperate from a mistake, such as having a single demon weak to Force on which enemies can profit in order to maul the rest of your team.

 The exploration part of the game is a bit lacking too. If you've played SMT before you know that they like using simplified maps for the overworld, but the map this time around is... too small and cramped, so it's not much use. Exploring dungeons is more straightforward but they added a weird gimmick in which you must move the camera up or down in order to climb surfaces or crawl through small openings. Why? What does that add to the game? What a useless gimmick. And while Burroughs keeps track of your quests and sidequests, sometimes can be a bit disconcerting figuring out where to go. And since I'm at it, this game has the most random Negotiating that I've ever seen in a SMT game, even demons from the same family can react differently to your choices, and it seems like negotiating always goes against the player, so have fun losing turns and HP as you try to sway an enemy to your cause.

 Waifus and character stereotypes? Check. Atlus tax? Check. They tried to justify the extra 10 dollars by adding a guide that nobody wanted, but still. What else is next in the Modern Atlus checklist? Ah! Yes, DLC, which this game has up the wazoo. Remember the four angels? Staples of the franchise, which you get to fight most of the time. Well, they have been redesigned and do have a part to play in the story... but can only be fought if you buy the DLC. Macca is hard to come by, need more? DLC fights to earn Macca. Your level is too low? DLC fights for extra experience. There's so much DLC it ain't even funny, there's even DLC armor, which is kinda ridiculous considering how you can only see your main character when exploring dungeons. So yeah, scummy Atlus' DLC? Check.

 I also want to touch upon the presentation. I'm a strong supporter of the 'graphics don't make a game' camp, but what the hell is this? I mean, I know what it is, in their effort to lure in long-time fans they most of the game look like the SNES classics. Enemies are represented by rather lackluster sprite-art, although at least they stay true to Kazuma Kaneko's designs, well, the enemies that still use his designs anyways, as I've previously stated, some of the new designs are rather poor and amateurish. The 2-D character portraits scream 'Generic Anime' as well, looking as if they came out of Persona 3-4 rather than SMT. Heck, important NPCs are represented by static 2-D sprites as well. The only time the 3DS' muscle is used is when exploring dungeons. Look, the 3DS can do MUCH better than this, and Shin Megami Tensei has looked MUCH better than this, just pick any game from the PS2 era. It's off-putting how many corners they cut with their flagship franchise.

 Shin Megami Tensei is very disappointing for a Shin Megami Tensei game, but it's still a great game on its own. Which is why it was hard to set apart what I wanted out of the game with what it actually is. After you get through the hardest, unfairest part of the game it actually gets fun, and the challenge becomes more fair(even if luck is an ever-present factor). For as disappointing as the story and characters are, there's no denying that SMT's brand of dark horror is still present, even if to a smaller degree. But it's time to accept that Atlus has changed, and with it, Shin Megami Tensei as a whole. Goodbye, it was a good ride.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #457: Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance

 There're many chinks in this Gladiator's armor.

 Before Sony took us to Ancient Greece, with its gods and copious amounts of blood, we had Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance, a similar game in concept but with a much different execution, and set in Ancient Rome. This is a hack and slash action game that tried to do its own thing, to varying degrees of success.

 Arruntius has come to power, turning Rome into a city of... even more blood and more malice, and to celebrate he promises Rome the blood of a champion, the Invictus Thrax, a Gladiator that remained undefeated... until these games happened. But it's not all that bad, Thrax gets sent to the Elysium Camp upon which he learns that Arruntius is being helped by the gods Phobos and Deimos, but he too will be aided by gods, given a second chance and a mission: Kill Arruntius. The story takes a backseat to the gameplay, so don't expect interesting dialogue or characters, but it's an interesting set-up to have you, Thrax, slay both mythological creatures such as Cyclops and... Spartan Skeletons as well as other Gladiators.

 The game takes place throughout 6 stages, but each stage is relatively long and offers bonuses for exploration, so it'll take you between 6 and 8 hours to do everything and collect everything. The game is a bit weird, but it's mostly competent, R1 initiates locking onto enemies, and L1 can be held to target a secondary enemy. This is a rather important mechanic, y'see, Thrax can only perform three-hit combos by mixing Square and X attacks together, with no way to juggle enemies or create your own combos, but you are rewarded for switching between targets as you perform your three-hit combos. Rapidly switching, and successfully hitting different enemies will fill a gauge on the top of the screen that rewards you different bonuses, just as double strength, defense or even invulnerability, but do be careful, as the bonus only remains as long as the gauge is over its icon, and it will drop rapidly if you fail to hit enemies. Lastly, circle can be used to dodged, Thrax can't block, and triangle to use magic, three types that build upon each other, which grant you bonus strength(Easily the most useful), life-leeching or splash damage.

 For the most part, it's a competent system that's relatively fun. For the most part. There's a few kinks that keep it from being great however. For instance, you can't dodge or attack unless you are locking onto an enemy, which can throw you off when you are fumbling with the R1 button, since sometimes the game will autolock, and sometimes it won't, so you might accidentally turn it on or off, and while you deal with that you'll get hit with no chance to dodge. And if an enemy starts blocking... you can't do anything about it but wait until it gets bored and does something else. Certain enemies, the ones with black life bars, can be 'executed' in various, gory different ways, but I found no advantage or reward for doing so except having to go through a short loading scene, so they are pretty lame.

 You are given three different weapons: Sword, Axe and Gauntlets, and to be fair the do have different attacks, strength and speed, but, BUT you can't switch between them mid-combos, a huge missed opportunity. Combat could've been made more rewarding too, although to be fair exploration IS rewarded. Peppered throughout the first five stages you'll find challenge rooms that will bestow you with: Gauge enhancers for every weapon, new weapons(I didn't notice much damage improvement between them, but hey at least they look different!), combat gauge extenders, life bar extenders or one of 20 collectibles. These collectibles can be used to unlock the fourth combat gauge extenders for each weapon and collecting them all lets you choose one of the three ultimate weapons. These are instantly rewarding, which made searching throughout stages a fun enterprise.

 Not that they don't come with a few caveats, however. These fourth combat gauge challenges are unlocked somewhere inside levels you've already been into, and going back to a previous stage means having to endure every single cutscene, even the ones that introduced enemies and solving most puzzles. Not my idea of a fun time. Speaking of cutscenes, they can't be skipped and, to put a cherry on top, the game can get rather challenging, so have fun watching those cutscenes again. And did I mention that there's no manual saving? Hopefully there was a checkpoint close by, lest you have to replay and rewatch much! And I forgot to mention, you can unlock all three final combat gauges after clearing stage four, but don't go after the gauntlets' , since you'll backtrack all the way only to be told that you are missing the third combat gauge power up... found in stage five. Brilliant.

 Before wrapping up, I must mention just how boring and repetitive bosses are. There's one boss for every stage, kinda. The second stage has you fighting Phobos, which is easy as pie but takes a long while since you need to build your magic meter. The third stage features Phobos again, with one new technique, but is basically the same boss. The fourth stage has Deimos that fights similarly to Phobos, but at least beating her is slightly different. The five stage has Deimos again, only a bit different. The last boss is a bit different too, but once again, repetitive and boring, since it's very easy, but takes too long to defeat.

 Gladiator Sword of Vengeance is a mixed bag. The basics are competent, stages are vast, pretty and fun to explore, with a lot of rewards waiting to be earned. Combat is very simple, but I'd lie if I said that I didn't have fun most of the time. But it falls short in other areas, combat needed more polishing and more depth, replaying stages or segments shouldn't have been such a pain, and the bosses desperately needed more creativity. It's a decent weekend game, if anything, one that's easier to remember as a huge waste of potential.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance

 Before God of War there was...

 Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance, before God of War took us to ancient Greece, Sword of Vengeance had as slicing and dicing in ancient Rome. I used to play this game back when I was younger and I actually liked a lot, but as I grew up I always wondered why people forgot about it.

 And I think I kinda, sorta get it. By today's standards the game is pretty dated, combat consists of 3-hit combos, no juggles, no linking, no nothing fancy and dandy that other, future games would implement. But still, I must insist that at the time of its release it was pretty dope, even if less involved that Devil May Cry.

  Well, I'm midway through the first level, and it gets better the more power ups you unlock, so here's to looking forwards to what the game can offer!

Review #456: X-Men - Mutant Academy(Playstation)

 It features costumes from the movie, in case you didn't read the overexcited note on the game's cover.

 X-men - Mutant Academy came out of the left field when the X-Men movie came out, as sort-of a tie-in game. Sort of, because despite featuring costumes from the movie, sorta, it has nothing to do with it, and it's a 2-D fighting game of all things!

 The game offers a few different modes: Arcade, Survival, Training and Versus Player, which are all self-explanatory, as well as a 'Academy Mode' that teaches you every move your character has. And you might as well go through it, since there's no in-game movelist and the booklet is no help in this regard. There's 10 characters in all, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Phoenix, Gambit, Beast, Magneto, Mystique, Sabertooth and Toad, each character featuring their comic book costume, an unlockable alternate costume as well as a costume based on their looks from the movie, Gambit and Beast gaining entirely original outfits, since they didn't appear in the movie. By the by, finishing the game rewards you with a 15 second long CG movie... which are used in the opening movie, so it's a bit of a waste. The Outros for clearing the Academy Mode with every character are very short and unrewarding too.

 The game runs on the very popular 6 button set-up, with three punches and three kicks of varying speed and strength that can be used to string combos together. Characters can also block, by holding back on the joystick, perform throws and use counters, although you only get three per round. The combo system works well enough, but each character only gets about 3 special moves and 3 super moves, which is very lacking. I also felt like the controls, when it came to inputting special and super moves, sometimes were a bit unresponsive.

 The game has a very original set-up in how Super moves work. By dealing damage you build energy on a three-tiered gauge each tiered tied to a different super move. Each tier requires more energy than the next, the weakest super being a simple super move, the second tier being a 'Stringed super move', which lets you boost its damage by pressing the appropriate directions on the D-Pad and lasty, the Xtreme Move, which is the strongest super and... is just another simple super, but one that deals major damage, most of the time anyways. You can transfer energy between tiers, which is brilliant, but in order to perform the Xtreme move... first you have to mash the X button to form an X on the gauge. Seriously. It's pretty idiotic considering that the X is a weak kick, so they expect you to mash X as you press other buttons? When the enemy lies down? What's the point of this mechanic? It's the only blemish on an otherwise great idea.

 And that's Mutant Academy in a nutshell, a good but unremarkable game. It adds some fantastic ideas to the fighting game genre, specifically how you can manage the energy gauge, but it's a bit lacking in other areas. Characters could've used more moves, the fighting could've used some more oomph behind it... and then there's the fact that Mutant Academy 2 makes it completely obsolete.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: X-Men - Mutant Academy(Playstation 1)

 No, there's no X-Menathon.

 I actually only wanted to play the second game, since it's basically Mutant Academy + extras, but... the seller shipped this one instead. I've put it up for sale, but in the meantime... I might as well give it a try.

 Issalright. I mean, there's a bunch of neat ideas that would be polished and expanded upon on future games, like different gauges for different special moves, or moving energy from one gauge to another. So it does have original ideas, which are rather welcome, while also playing it by the book: 3 punches and 3 kicks, blocking by holding back on the joystick, etc.

 I've played the game with a bunch of characters, and it feels rather... limiting. Each character has about 3 specials and 3 supers, which kinda falls short of what one would expect. Performing special moves feels a bit unresponsive, I switched to Street Fighter EX3 to make sure that it wasn't my controller acting up, and no, it wasn't, for whatever reason this game sometimes has issues with my inputs.

 On the whole, it's an entertaining little game. I'll be off trying out the rest of the characters.

Review #455: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2(DS)

 Well... it's an interesting experiment to say the least!

 While far from technical marvels, the Ultimate Alliance saga wasn't something I'd have thought a good fit for the Nintendo DS, yet Activision likes the smell of money and having had one of the largest installbases for a videogame console during its era, porting the game to the DS was a no-brainer. The end result is lackluster... but it's also interesting how they managed to cram the brunt of the game into a tiny DS cart.

 Ultimate Alliance 2 loosely follows the Civil War storyline from the comics, but only for a little while before introducing Nanites and it's zombie-like disease which forces heroes, villains, allies and enemies to work together and stop the infestation. The DS' version of the plot is very flimsy and little time and attention is spent treading each story thread. Heck, one of the home console version's selling points was that each path offered exclusive characters and stages, but in the DS version there's only one unique mission for each path and by the end of the game you'll have the full 15-character roster at your disposal... probably a consequence of having a single save-file and no New Game+. The DS version's noteworthy for being the only one to have the Sentry and She-Hulk as playable characters.

 The game deserves praise for keeping in-tact so much about the console game. You still play as a four-man team of your choosing and go from dungeon to dungeon beating enemies for experience points. The entire control scheme is kept intact: Weak and Strong attacks, a grab attack and the jump all done with the face buttons, press L to block and hold R and press face buttons for the four different abilities. Whereas the console game had four different attack abilities, in the DS version there're 3 attacks and 1 buff. As you'd expect, defeating enemies earns you experience which eventually lets your characters level up. With each level up you earn a single ability point to spend enhancing your four active skills or the two passive skills. Auto-assigning ability points is also set on by default. which sucks so bad, but it can be turned off. Sadly, Equipment/Boosts are gone entirely, so there's no way to customize your four man-squad.

 But not everything's perfect, as you'd expect having your four-man team on-screen is pretty taxing on the poor DS, and once enemies get into the picture... let's just say that the framerate is pretty bad, you'll play the entire game in sub-20 FPS. Since the DS has no analog of any kind, there's no way to turn the camera around, which you can get used to, but it's still pretty sub-optimal. There's also the fact that there's no mini-map of any sort, and while you can access the map by pressing select, it's pretty laggy. Navigation could've been even more annoying, but the devs took this shortcomings in mind, so levels are pretty straightforward, which has the inevitable result of making stages feel bland and repetitive.

 Beating enemies also makes them drop health and mana orbs, just as in previous games, but new, yellow blobs as well that serves to charge a new five-star gauge. You can use this gauge to perform 'fusion attacks'(Which look so bad and choppy on the DS that you don't even know what's going on, but it deals a lot of damage so who cares!) or revive fallen characters. The AI is pretty bad, one too many times I found them using their powers and wasting mana on thin air, and they seem to have trouble following you through doorways. The game's difficulty is pretty spotty as well, this one time I entered a double boss battle and was destroyed in a few seconds flat, tried again and I managed to defeat the same two bosses very easily. Regardless, expect to be reviving allies pretty often, either due to their own idiocy or because the game just decided to become hard for no reason whatsoever.

 Being a DS game, the developers introduced a few tap minigames. The most annoying one being the bomb disarm/computer hacking one, which the game doesn't properly explain how to perform. I had to look online for an explanation, and was happy to find out that I wasn't the only one suffering through the first one. And some bosses will have you tapping the screen too, without any warning beforehand, which is really dumb since I have to pop-out the stylus at a moment's notice. Or use my fat finger, which isn't always precise enough.

 While Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 on the DS isn't very good, I can't help but appreciate how well they managed to translate everything to inferior hardware. A few kinks needed addressing, making the AI allies less dumb, maybe allowing you to move the camera around by holding the L button, like the PSP did, allowing for more nuanced level design, maybe having a mini-map on the lower screen instead of having a needless HUD, and removing the touch-screen mini-games, at leas the ones involving bosses. I mean, the inferior hardware pretty much makes a direct translation impossible, but a lot more could've been done to polish this game.
 4.0 out of 10