Now Playing: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Oogie's Revenge

 Devil May Cryoween?

Jack's back baby!

 I've heard a lot about Tim Burt.... Erm, The Nightmare Before Christmas' game, mostly that it played kinda like a dumbed down Devil May Cry. It doesn't. I'm hoping that Jack will get more moves, because at the moment I'm stuck with a silly 2-hit combo and a twirly spin attack as well as a grab... it doesn't exactly lend itself to comboing, even though there's a combo counter.

 As mediocre as the combat is, at least so far, I kinda like the game. Kinda. The atmosphere and setting is a dead ringer for the movie, which makes it very appealing to look at. Hopefully it'll end up being just as fun to play through.

Review #486: Spartan - Total Warrior

 Totally not God of War, but close enough!

The cover is butt, but the game is anything but.

 Spartan: Total Warrior is a hack and slash beat'em up spin off of the Total War real time strategy games. It has some similarities to the God of War games and to Dynasty Warriors, but it's its own beast.

 The game pits you as The Spartan, a spartan(D'oh) aided by Ares to defeat the forces of Crassus and Tiberius while fighting under Leonidas.... yeah, it's a fictional story that mixes a few historical figures with myths and legends, you'll meet Medusa and fight a Minotaur too. There're flamethrowers and ballistas for good measure too. The story is pretty meh, the voice acting is atrocious and the conclusion is given away by the first act's narration. No, you won't be playing this game for its story.

From zero to hero, The Spartan's armor will change as you beat stages.

 As The Spartan you'll be aided by the gods in your enterprise, wielding various weapons and magics. There're two attack buttons(weak and strong) and a jump button, while all four shoulder buttons are used as 'modifiers'. L1 makes The Spartan aim with his bow, L2 is your block button(that can be used with the attack buttons for single or radial shield bashes), R1 lets you use Rage attacks, when the rage bar is full(two varieties too, single target or radial) and R2 is the Magic button(Once again, Single target and radial). It sounds like a handful... and it is, many a time I found myself wasting magic when I wanted to use rage attacks, or aiming with the bow when I wanted to block. It took a while before I got comfortable with it, and even then I messed up occasionally.

 The directional pad can be used to switch between your weapons: Gorgon Shield and Sword, Athena's Blades(No, not those), Achilles' Spear and the Deathbiter(The Hammer). Every weapon has its strengths and weaknesses, as well as their own two unique magic spells. Mind you, while you can swap weapons at any time, you must be standing still, it doesn't matter if you're blocking or not, just don't be touching the left analog stick. Yes, it's a bit annoying, but you can manage. Do be careful with Checkpoints, however, as they'll restore you with the exact same amount of health you had when the game saved, which could potentially leave you in an unwinnable state. It didn't happen to me, but it could happen.

There's plenty of enemies and allies on-screen at the same time

 The game is based on chapters that play out in a very linear fashion, although there's room for exploration if you want some extras, most which affect the Arena mode. There's a little bit of everything in here, there're some very basic puzzles every now and then, there're a few escort missions(One's infamously tough, although I didn't have trouble with it) but most of the time it's all about you and your army against the Romans. Battles can take epic(As far as the PS2 goes!) proportions, with dozens of troops on-screen at once and a very steady framerate to boot. The combat is relatively fun, but sometimes it can get a bit repetitive, with you mashing the shield-bash move until you can get an opening and land some hits. And after each stage you'll be given stat points to even the odds, while you can spend them on Health, Damage or Magic, by the end of the game everything will be maxed, so don't think too hard about the 'perfect build'.

 The game can get VERY tough, but it's always very, very fair. You're given a lot of tools, and as long as you can figure out which ones to use on every occasion, you'll be fine. Sometimes you'll be alone against hundreds of soldiers, so you'll have to make do with the Gorgon Shield's magic and petrify them, and then use Athena's blades to quickly make mince-stone out of them, or perhaps it's better to use Achilles' invulnerability spell and lay waste to the enemy? Assassins can be tough if you go at them with Athena's blades, so equip the Gorgon's Shield and Sword and take them out against the walls. Or maybe the best way to deal with the enemies in the sewers is to bash them down to the abyss with your powerful shield bash. The only weapon that felt useless was the hammer, while it's the only weapon that can ignore shields... it's too slow, so for every hit that you land you'll be receiving three. It's very tough, but make good use of your tools and you'll be A-OK.

The Spear is a fantastic weapon to deal with most constricted enemy-infested areas.

 But the game's biggest offender is... fall damage. WHY?! Since when is fall damage a good thing!? WHY OH WHY IS FALL DAMAGE IN THE GAME?... well, it's not a huge issue, but do be careful when going up-and-down multi-leveled stages. The game is pretty lengthy, probably 6 hours long, and there's an Arena mode if you are so inclined, which tasks you with defeating various waves of enemies.

 Spartan - Total Warrior is a total blast to play. It's got a few technical flaws that keep it from greatness, but most of what it does it does it well. It might be a bit too tough for some, but there's an Easy option and I'm guessing it might be more lenient on players. Regardless, the challenge on Normal is just right and I loved how it made you work with what you had in order to come out victorious.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Spartan - Total Warrior

 Not a Halloween game, issit?

Say no to photorealistic depictions of people in videogame covers.

 Well then, the Halloween Extravaganza is over, but there're still games to be played! Like Spartan - Total Warrior, of which I just finished the fist missions and it was great.

  The first chapter is done and done with, and I loved it. The combat is simple, but fast, and it feels good. I love the huge amount of troops in the stage, made everything feel epic. And the framerate is pretty smooth despite it! What I didn't like was having fall damage, seriously?! Still, it's so good that I can't wait to play more of it.

Review #485: Bloody Roar 4

 Bloody whimper.

That's not witchblade, it's the newest focus on fanservice!

 Primal Fury's place as a sequel is often contested by people that consider it more of an upgraded port, which is funny considering this game feels even less as a sequel than it... kinda. If you come to BR 4 from BR 3, which would be understandable considering Primal Fury/Extreme were never released on the PS2, this game will feel fresher and newer, but if you come from PR/E... well, it'll feel like a remix or enhanced port of sorts. Yes, Bloody Roar 4 is another lackluster effort from Hudson, but changes made to the core mechanics made this game a blunder.

 Modes in this game are: Arcade, Time Attack, VS Player, Training, Survival, Sparring(VS CPU) and Career. Most modes are self explanatory but Career Mode, which was a good idea on paper. In it you have to travel through a grid, fighting monotonous one-round fights against random opponents in order to earn points with which to customize your characters, with passive abilities(More strength, higher jumps) or even new moves or moves from other fighters. It's also the only mode in which you can unlock the secret fighters.... which are made up of Long(What.), Shina(Why?!), Kohryu(Plays just like he did in 3 and Primal Fury, and is still an unlockable), Uranus(Same deal as Kohryu) and another version of Ryoho. Lame. It boggles the mind as to why the made Long and Shina unlockable now, they look and play just like they did in Primal Fury, and they don't have any special plot relevance or what have you.

Lions and Tigers... there surely were a lot of felines in the franchise, huh?

 Let's start with changes to the gameplay, first of all, as long as you're in beast mode, you won't receive damage but rather lose beast energy. It's a weird change, and one that makes Human form all but useless, and it's hilarious because you start every fight with a full health and beast gauge, and there's no reason as to why you wouldn't morph right then and there, why lose health needlessly? Turning into beast can be done at any time, if you don't have any energy on the beast gauge you'll simply trade a bit of your health. Trading in a certain amount of health will initiate a toned down version of Hyper Beast form from previous games. Lame. These changes also mean that after you lose all your health you'll be forcibly changed into beast form, and a round won't end until both gauges are depleted. It's lame, it's dull, it's boring and it removes a lot of strategy from previous games, just spam that beast form. Beast Drives do much less damage than before and only cost a bit of Beast Gauge, but in turn now deal damage to both health and beast gauges at the same time. The game's engine has been tweaked a bit, and now landing hits doesn't feel quite as good as before and the game, as a whole, feels slower. Lame.

 Ganesha and Chronos(And Fang, if you played Extreme) are gone, alongside their movesets, and characters only have 2 costumes(8 of them have a new third costume though.), movesets haven't changed a bit as far as I noticed. There're a few new stages, but you'll notice that a lot of them are rehashes or asset flips from previous stages. There're some unexplained invisible barriers around stages that make a few arenas very small and cramped until you break them(By smashing your opponent against it) which is... odd? The smaller stages are too small, which makes fighting a bit cumbersome.

The newcomers are not very appealing.

 As for the new characters, we've got Nagi the Spurious, a design that put fanservice first, but she's kinda fun to play as, which is understandable since she is related to Xion, and both are masher-friendly characters that have a lot of flash and simple inputs. There's Reiji the Crow, his beast form is really cool, but his human form looks like a generic enemy NPC Thug. Lastly, Ryoho who comes in two flavors: Ryoho and Mana the Ninetails, which is a bit wonky, circle makes Mana attack while Ryoho fights with punches and kicks, and Ryoho the Dragon in which Ryoho fights by himself and gets a wonky, but kinda neat, dragon form. As for Ryoho, he is a bit dull, gameplay-wise, and looks like a generic Japanese Martial Artist Monk design. Basically, besides Nagi, the other new characters aren't worth it. And Reiji's beast form makes a few stages drop frames like there's no tomorrow, do not use him in the sewers stage, for your sake.

 Finally, let me go in on the Career Mode and its flaws. First of all, fully clearing the entire and needlessly convoluted to explore grid you'll be left off with 96000 points... but you need 100000 in order to unlock Ryoho, problem is... every fight from then on only gives out 50 points. Yes, you have to fight 80 boring rounds to unlock Ryoho. If you equip damage boosts on your character you can finish each fight in two combos(The game pushes you back when a character transforms after losing all its health), so you can probably do this in 30-40 minutes. It's not really all that tedious, but its very boring. Then there's the fact that a savefile only has room for 8 customized characters. 8 out of 18. Brilliant.

There're two Ryohos, two tigers, two moles and Uranus is supposed to be a clone of Uriko....is this rise of the Clones?

 And don't you worry, not only does the game fail at a gameplay level, it also fails in the presentation. I know that the Gamecube was a stronger console, but these character models, which should be the ones from Primal Fury, which should look better than the models from BR3... managed to look even worse than 3. I can't quite put my finger on why the game looks worse, but it does. I think the characters are missing some polygons and worse lighting effects in order to bring back blood particles and make the game run smoothly while providing very short load times. It's just a theory, but BR 3 had rather long load times, which are gone now. Thanks? And then there're the ending cutscenes to Arcade Mode. The dialogue is bad, the subtitles have typos, the stories contradict each other and the voice acting is horrible, the delivery is abysmal and there's no lip synching. Did someone even care?

 And this marks Bloody Roar's end. In a sick twist of fate, no other Bloody Roar game is as hard to find, or expensive, as Bloody Roar 4 and none is as bad as it is. If you're like me you probably want to play as the new characters, but believe me, they aren't worth it. The new mechanics are horrible and only Nagi manages to be fun to play as, you're better off with Chronos and Ganesha in Primal Fury.
 4.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Bloody Roar 4

 Kind of a sequel? Kinda? Maybe?

 Bloody Roar Primal Fury has a contested place as a sequel, but nobody seems to doubt Bloody Roar 4's worthiness to the number... despite it recycling character designs and models from Primal Fury. And we lost Ganesha and Chronos for series' newcomers Ryoho, Nagi and Reiji.

 Regardless, I started career mode with Bakuryu and... everything feels off. I still don't quite get how to enter Hyper Beast mode and everything feels slow. The feedback you got from landing hits is also gone, and everything feels floatier and... looser. Not good.

 The new system that makes both Beast Gauge and Health bar needing to be depleted is garbage, seriously, human form is nigh useless and you can just spam Beast Mode by expending a little health.

 All in all... I'm not feeling it. I don't think it's quite as terrible as people make it out to be, but I wouldn't call it great either.

Review #484: Bloody Roar - Primal Fury

 Is it a port or is it a sequel?

Not a good cover, not at all.

 When talking about Primal Fury one question usually arises, is it a port or is it a sequel to 3? No place seems to agree, but after having played both games back to back, the truth is somewhere in the middle, leaning towards full-blown sequel. Y'see, while it feels like the same game, the art-direction has shifted completely, the storyline is completely different, every character sporting new designs and a few changed moves(But only a few, and only some characters), the mechanics have been tweaked a bit and there're about two new stages... reusing the rest from 3 and there're two new characters. Basically, it's more like a very meaty expansion pack than a true sequel.

 BR 3 was a bit light on modes, and Primal Fury set out to remedy this by offering an Arcade Mode, VS Player, Time Attack, Survival, Team Battle and VS Team Battle. 'Extra Modes' has been swapped with 'Cheats', which works like 'Custom VS' from previous games, only that it affects every mode. Cheats, basically, let you tweak a few things, like walls on stages, playing as super deformed characters(It returned!) or fighting at a higher/lower speed. The new characters are fairly interesting, Ganesha the Elephant and Chronos the Penguin... who's Hyper Beast Mode is a Phoenix. Enjoy these new characters, because as fun to use as they are, they won't return in the next, and final, game.

The new designs are hit or miss, but characters only have two costumes/colors now. Lame!

 The game plays pretty much the same as 3, on which I expanded on the previous blog entry, but Hyper Beast Mode has been change a lot. You no longer need to wait for a full beast gauge to unleash it, instead you can trade health in order to use it at any time. It lasts only 12 seconds, but you can use it as many times as you wish, and why wouldn't you, as much health as it costs to use, you can just use Beast Drives, which will heal you a little whether they hit or not. Hyper Beast does seem to do less overall damage than before, probably to make up for how easy it is to access it.

 Balance... is still pretty bad. A few characters have been tweaked a bit, mostly in order to add new counter moves, and Long does seem a bit toned down, but Uranus is still too strong when compared to the rest of the cast. Chronos too is pretty tough, but not because of his Phoenix Mode, not because he can actually rob you of Beast Gauge energy, but because his Penguin Form is so short that it's hard to hit him!

C'mon Xion, make those devils cry!

 The new art direction is very... animu, to say the least. There's an anime opening, and there are hilariously mute anime endings for every character, save for Kohryu and Uranus who get the short end of the stick here too. Character designs are a bit softer, some characters have been getting edgier and grittier by every game, but here they just... started wearing normal clothes? Look at Yugo, he went from an anime fighter, to a hardcore pugilist to a leather-jacker sporting Jin Kazama wannabe to a... skater dude? Well, to be fair, it's a bit hit or miss, Long looks better than ever, while Shina doesn't come off as badass as she did before, while in turn Alice doesn't look as animu as before. Your mileage may vary depending on the character.

 Primal Fury is... pretty much Bloody Roar 3 with a few new bells and whistles. While I think that BR 3 had the better art direction and Hyper Beast Mode worked better too, I can appreciate the efforts taken to balance the rest of the characters... even if making Hyper Beast Mode something so easy to cheese. Overall? A different flavor of the same game. Not necessarily better and not necessarily worse, just... different.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #483: Bloody Roar 3

 Xion was Dante before Devil May Cry was a thing.

The art isn't as dark as it used to be, but it's still neat.

 Bloody Roar 2 was pretty dope and took the series in a bold new direction with the grittier art-style and cooler character designs. But then came the PS2, and thus a new game was bound to happen harnessing the power of the new consoles. Bloody Roar 3 is everything a fan of the franchise would've wanted.

 As far as modes go, we've got Arcade Mode, now with hand-drawn prologue and ending stills, VS Player(No VS CPU, which sucks), Survival and Practice Mode. Fulfilling certain conditions, most of them involving Survival and Arcade Mode, you can unlock Extra modes, which are hidden beneath the options screens and have the series staples like No walls or everything-cancels-into-everything. Kids mode, big arms and big head modes are gone. The selection of Modes is alright, but man does it suck not having VS CPU. As for the character roster, every character returns, with a few new moves and new designs. There're three new characters, Xion the Unborn(A cockroach looking thing), Kohryu the Iron Mole(Bakuryu from the first game, plays very similarly to the new Bakuryu) and Uranus the Chimera.

Characters have three different costumes and/or colors to pick from.

 The gameplay remains the same, two attack buttons(Punch and Kick) as well as the beast button that turns you into a beast as well as doubling as another attack button while in beast mode. Beast Drives, AKA Super Moves, return, but now with universal motions for every character as well as two of them for each. Sidesteps are turned on by default now, and the game plays way faster than before, something I welcome quite a lot. The biggest game changer is Hyper Beast mode, once your beast gauge is full, press R1+O+Square to enter Hyper Beast Mode, which lasts 12 seconds and once time runs out you lose your beast gauge, but makes you incredibly overpowered for 12 seconds, letting you spam Beast Drives non-stop, yes, the supers that normally should turn you back into a human and heal some of your health back.

 While Hyper Beast Mode makes every character overpowered, there's no escaping the fact that the game, as a whole, isn't very balanced. Long, Xion and Uranus are simply too strong when compared to the rest of the cast, although I've heard that every character has access to some very simple infinites...

That's not Guyver... I think.

 Bloody Roar 3 is the culmination of the beautiful mess that the series is. Any attempt of being a balanced fighter is gone out the window in favor of offering fast-paced button mashing action. It's the most markedly unbalanced it's ever been, but it's also the most fun it's ever been. The series will never appeal to some people, and that's fine, because there's definitely a place for this game.... but it'd be nice if they could tone down a few characters, yes?
 8.5 out of 10