Now Playing: Beyond Good and Evil

 It's kinda growing on me. Kinda.

She can take my picture any time.

 Alright, so time for another game that I used to play back when I was younger. I'm pretty sure that I bought it because of the hype surrounding it. Anyways, I don't quite remember how far I got, but certainly not very far, and I don't remember how much I liked it or not either.

 I've played a little bit, got inside the mines and got Pey'J's tool and that's about it. While I'm not impressed, and the busted framerate doesn't help, I feel like I'm slowly starting to like it. The world seems very interesting and lively, even though it applies stereotypes up the wazzoo, and they seem to have mixed the Italian stereotype with the Spanish one....

 But the part that sucks the most? I'm playing on a Slim PS2, which means... I'm subject to the infamous sound bug. It's quite annoying.

Review #490: Rygar - The Legendary Adventure

 A Greek and Roman fusion of melodrama with a dash of Onimusha and God of War.

Of shields and gods and titans.

 Rygar - The Legendary Adventure is a bit of forgotten little game. it did the greek-action game-with-chained weapons thing years before God of War was a thing, and closely followed in the footsteps of Onimusha and Devil May Cry. I can't say for sure why it was forgotten by time, although the Wii-remake with motion controls and a white-haired ridiculous replacement for Rygar probably didn't help its reputation, but I can say that the game stand the test of time quite well.

 In the game you play as the eponymous Rygar, a gladiator in a world that's a fusion of Roman and Greek culture. He's about to be rewarded by a sort-of princess, who gets kidnapped and Rygar thrown to the pits of the colosseum. But it's alright, a deity confers Rygar with the Diskarmor, a shield with an edge that's chained to Rygar's arm, which works for both offense and defense, armed with it Rygar now ventures forth to brave the gods and titans and whatever stands in his way. The story is alright, but the voice acting, dialogue and script is... Horrible. Seriously, it's bad, it's cheesy and it takes itself seriously, characters will spit exposition just because and it makes no sense. Sadly, while I'm the kind of person that adores ridiculous, over-the-top stories... this one doesn't quite hit that sweetspot of 'so bad it's good', so it's just dumb. And if you die, which you probably will, you can't skip cutscenes... although you can skip the credits. And did I mention that there's a Britney Spears look-alike that performs a musical number near the end of the game? That's a thing that happened.

Worms are considered Titans in this game, and you'll be slaying a lot of those.

 The game borrows a lot from Onimusha and Devil May Cry, meaning fixed camera angles and a mixture of exploration and combat. As you play through the game you'll come across obstacles that you can't clear, such as long gaps or switches you can't press... but advancing through the game will earn you the abilities you need, such as turning your disk armor into a grappling hook or stomping on switches. Backtracking is never needed, the few times you are sent back to previous areas you have immediate access to new roads, but re-exploring previous areas with new abilities will usually reward you with collectibles to enhance your abilities or unlock stuff in the gallery.

 While it has a combo-counter, the game is more Onimusha than Devil May Cry, so no fancy juggling, even though you get various different combos, some that must be found, and two attack buttons(Square for weak attacks, Triangle for stronger moves). You can block with the R1 button, but there's no dodging, although I found the slide move useful to dodge some boss' projectiles. There's also a magic gauge that can be used to summon monsters, but I found their damage output to be pathetic in comparison to the damage I could do with combos, so in the end I just used my magic to heal, once I found the ability, and only used summons on the second-to-last-boss which requires you to do so.

The game looks beautiful, and there's a lot of different environments to traverse.

 You'll find three different disk armors, and each one has a different use. The Hades shield is for long-range attacks, the Heaven disk is very slow but covers a wide area and the Sea diskarmor is very fast, but has pathetic range and does little damage. Every shield feels different, and I did switch between them(L2/R2) throughout the game, because the game presented situations that favored different disks. For instance, while I favor the Sea diskarmor, it was risky closing in on some bosses so I had to use the Hades shield, and at times there were too many enemies and I couldn't dispatch them quickly enough with the Sea diskarmor, so I had to switch to the Heaven shield and deal with them. The three disks were implemented brilliantly, so kudos for that.

 You can level up Rygar stats(Life, Attack and Defense) by finding collectibles, some are hidden behind objects or hidden walls, but sometimes enemies will drop these too. There's a separate currency, Sfaira, that can be found in the same way, but these are used to power up your shields. Your shields will be maxed before you know it, so don't worry about grinding. Lastly, hidden in the game are Mystic stones that you can equip on your shields for extra abilities, like healing with L1 and square, more attack power, more defense, changing how some attacks work, etc. It's a fairly neat addition, and some stones can only be found on certain difficulty settings!

When in doubt, flee.

 The game starts off rather tough, but as you level up Rygar it'll get easier, trust me. You also need to get used to how the game works, since combat against bosses is more... methodical. Don't expect to pull-off entire combos, instead, you'll probably have to look for small openings, land in a few hits and retreat. You'll also need to figure out what can be blocked and what must be dodged and how. You can't just mash buttons willy-nilly either, since once you throw the first attack you'll be locked in that direction for the duration of the combo. It's not perfect, it's a bit stiff, but you can get used to it. The game runs for about 4 hours, probably more if you are more meticulous with your exploration.

 Rygar the Legendary Adventure is a good little game that fell through the cracks of most gamer's radars even though critical reception at the time was fairly positive. Which is a shame, since the game was pretty good at its time, and it's still really good now. It's most glaring detriment, probably, is that nothing about it is noteworthy and how much it lacks in visual spectacle, because as good as the environments are, there's little memorable about the action itself.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Rygar - The Legendary Adventure

 That's definitely Britney Spears.

The halo over his head is kinda an overkill, ain't it?

 Since I played a game I hadn't played before from a franchise I used to play when I was younger(Way of the Samurai 1 and 2!), now it's time to play a game I actually used to play when I was younger. I don't remember how far I got, but I do remember defeating the blue-winged guy and getting both Diskarmors. I think I used to like the Skyblue one and hated the yellow one. I think.

 Anyways, I just defeated the first boss and entered the Elysium Shrine(Or something like that) and I kinda like it. Combat is kinda limited, it feels like a mixture of God of War's chain-styled combat(Although this game came first!) with Onimusha's exploration and set-up. I'm also amassing points but the game didn't let me spend them yet.

 It seems like the game will be kinda tough, considering that the first boss killed me once. The first boss! But the stages themselves are easy, at least so far. What really struck me as odd is the fact that there's no dodging, only blocking. Which probably didn't seem weird at the time, but man, it's hard getting used to it!

Review #489: Samurai Western

  Don't bring a sword to a gunfight.... unless you're a Samurai.

Character design and art-direction gets an A+.

 Have you ever wondered who'd win in a fight between a Cowboy and a Samurai? Acquire set out to answer that question, and them being Japanese won't give them any bias towards the winner... or not. Often called a Way of the Samurai spin-off, Samurai Western is a very different game that was clearly made on a tight budget.

 You play as Gojiro, a Samurai in search of his missing brother, albeit on a mission of revenge. His tracks lead Gojiro to the wild, wild west where he'll have to duke it out with gunmen and outlaws and his missing brother, who has forsaken the way of the sword in exchange for a couple of six-shooters. The story is very cheesy, characters are ridiculous and the situations are very over the top. I loved it. Cutscenes preface and give closure to each stage and they are fairly interesting to watch... as ugly as the graphics are.

It looks really cool... most of the time.

 The game is divided into 16 stages, with 5 bonus unlockable stages for a total of 21. Be forewarned, the game is very short. Your first playthrough will take about 3 hours, if you don't skip cutscenes, but as I replayed the game on Hard, skipping cutscenes, I realized how quickly I was plowing through the game. There's a lot of replayability thanks to the many unlockables, a Survival Mode as well as a Hard difficulty setting... that lets you unlock other characters(They play just as Gojiro, but it's still a nice bonus), not to mention the dozens upon dozens of different accessories you can find to customize Gojiro(Or the other characters) as well as different swords. Oh, and there's co-op, albeit with some limitations, the camera follows player 1, the second player must play as Ralph the cowboy and Ralph fights with a gun, which is admittedly lamer than Gojiro's combo-based gameplay.

 Alright, so how does the game play? Square is your attack button, X jumps and circle can be used to either dodge or deflect bullets. Your square attacks can also reflect bullets if you time it right. You can also grab boxes and other small objects and throw them around, but it's pretty ineffective. Landing blows increases a 'master' gauge beneath your life bar, which is used to enter Master mode by pressing L1, which lasts for as long as you have energy on this gauge, depending on your weapon you'll gain different perks and bonuses. But you can also wait for it to fill completely, in which case you can enter Ultimate Master Mode, which makes you invulnerable and grants you one-hit kills on common enemies. There's also a bizarre first person camera by tapping R2 which is... it's something else, but I guess it can lend itself to a few laughs.

Get ready to fend off hordes of identical looking gunmen.

 Swords you earn give Gojiro different stances, like one-handed letting you double jump, or double swords in which case you lose the ability to grab stuff. Honestly, it's mostly minutiae, but at least they put some work in. Playing the game you'll be able to level up your equipped accessories and your equipped blade, which is a good thing since it will give you better stat bonuses. Gojiro himself levels up as you finish stages and you can allocate bonus stat points in either extending your Health, extending your Master gauge, increasing your damage or defense. The accessory system is pretty neat since you can relocate, rotate or change the size of every accessory you equip.

 Sadly the game is simple to a fault. You'll be doing little more than mashing square button as you defeat the same enemies over and over and over again. Even stages are reused, sometimes changing the time of the day. Sometimes. Bosses have very memorable appearances and personalities, but as far as the fights go... they are pretty lame, and Raddo, Gojiro's brother, is a pain in the butt to fight, clearly they should've designed his fight better than to have the player perform 1-2 slashes in fear of getting counter-attacked. The game itself also feels rough around the edges, like the terrible dodging animation or how poor collision detection works with stairs, don't be surprised if you go through them back to the floor, happened to me twice.

The way of the sword is a deadly one.

 Samurai Western has a lot of soul, but the small budget really hurt it. And you can tell that they tried to make up for what it lacked in substance with extras, like a silly, but functional, two player mode or the copious amount of accessories to put on Gojiro. Samurai Western has more bad things than good things, but the bad is never TOO bad, my time with the game was a fun one but the game needed more work, more variety and a bigger budget.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Samurai Western

 Screams of low budget.

I love the artwork

 You've probably heard of Samurai Western, you've never played it but you've probably heard of it. People either love it or hate it and... I'm up to stage five and I neither love it nor hate it. The game's been called a Way of the Samurai spin-off, but frankly, I don't see the resemblance.

 Anyways, the game feels like a low budget game thanks to its poor graphics, poor animations(Cutscenes and gameplay both) and wonky gameplay. This one time I was going up some stairs and I just fell through them to the floor. The mechanics are also pretty barebones: You mash the square buttons and defeat enemies until the game decides you've killed enough, don't worry, they don't stop spawning. Ever. And that's the game in a nutshell.

 There're a few extras, like customizing your character with accessories and different swords with different stances, but they are just fluff.

Review #488: Final Fantasy XII

 The beginning of the end.

Way too many blonde characters.

 Could you believe me if I told you that at some point in time it felt good to be a Final Fantasy fan? I remember back in the early 2000's when Square just went and announced Final Fantasy IX, X(Featuring a brown-haired Tidus!) and XI. And it was hype. Final Fantasy really meant something. And then XIII happened and it ruined the franchise forever, even XV couldn't fix everything that was broken. But what... what if I told you that everything started falling apart with XII? It was, at the time, the Final Fantasy that spent the most time in development hell, and while it doesn't really show it does still present flaws that would eventually be XIII's downfall.

 The story centers around the Sky Pirate Balthier and the princess Amalia(Ashe), even though the real protagonist is the land of Ivalice. The game's cast is probably the weakest it's ever been, which is surprising considering that there are only 6 characters: Vaan, the guy that you start playing as and is front-and-center on the game's cover but has minimal impact on the plot, Penelo, his friend who is just as relevant and receives as much development(Zero), Balthier and Fran, sky pirates who are the game's most interesting characters, Basch, the soldier who was imprisoned with treachery and Ashe, the princess that wants to stop the, erm, 'Empire' from taking over the land of Dalmasca. People have said that the story is more 'subtle' in this one, and more about politics and... and they are pretty much Rick and Morty fans telling you that FFXII's plot is for smart people. Which it's not. Want a game that gets political intrigue between warring kingdoms right? Play Suikoden. And mind you, I'm not saying the plot is bad, it simply is uninteresting and the main ensemble cast are but tools to move the plot forward and don't get as much development as they could.

There'll be a lot of grinding on your path to victory.

 A little MMORPG game called Final Fantasy XI happened between Final Fantasy X and XII, and as luck would have it, XI performed very well for Square. This translated into making XII borrow elements from MMORPGs. I hate MMORPGs. Which kinda sucks because the entire game plays like a MMORPG with story elements. You'll notice the MMORPG elements immediately, as towns are large and environments are massive.... and it also takes a long while to go from point A to point B. You can unlock a few fast-travel options between orange save crystals or town's aerodromes but there's still a lot of walking involved. And you're encouraged to travel on foot since the game is a grindfest, like pretty much any other MMORPG.

 For instance, take the game's main sidequest repertoire: Hunts. First you have to find a bar and read the notice board. Now, instead of hunting the monster, you have to track down the NPC and then you have to track down the monster, easier said than done, since a few monsters have unexplained spawn conditions. Like clearing the entire area of enemies and waiting for five minutes. FIVE MINUTES. Or sometimes you have to enter-and-exit an area and hope that the enemy spawns. Or enter-and-exit an area until it rains or there's a sandstorm so that the monster might spawn. And after beating it you have to return to the NPC to claim your reward.

Character design is mediocre, but monsters are pretty alright.

 And boy, are in you in for a treat if you want to get the ultimate equipment. These weapons can only be bought after selling certain amount of certain loot. Oh, did I mention that enemies don't carry money enemy more? You have to hope that they drop valuable loot, instead of pebbles, and then sell it for money. Anyways, you have to sell certain amount of very hard to find loot. This loot might require you to exploit one-time elite enemies, making them spawn(They have something like 40% spawn rate), stealing from them(6% chance of success every time you use the steal command!) and then run away, make them de-spawn and then return and make them respawn, doing this until you have enough material. Other times you might have to hope for 6% drops out of 40% spawn chance enemies. You'll be grinding. A lot.

 Which is kinda OK, since in order to do anything in the game you need License points. Want new techniques or spells? Buying them is not enough, you have to buy their license. Want to equip anything? Gotta get the correct license. Even the Gambit system, of which I'll talk later, has you acquire slot-by-slot on the license board. It's gonna take a while to max your characters. And while eventually every character will be able to do everything, their stats do push them in certain directions. Vaan's good at everything, while Fran is bad at everything. No, seriously, Fran has the worst stats in the game. And, as if it was a cruel joke, Balthier comes equipped with a gun and Fran with a bow, but they have slower animations than any other character with those weapons. Absolutely brilliant.

Making it like a MMORPG probably was the wrong direction to take the series in

 And now let me talk about other quirks, like chests. Chests have different spawn rates, and even after they spawn, they have a chance of having Gil or an item, and even then, there's only a couple of different weapons they could contain. It's a very weird design choice. Heck, the game's best weapon, the Zodiac Spear, will probably be forsaken by most players, since it requires a few very specific, very easy to find chests to be kept closed. And did I mention that there're invisible traps on the ground that could kill your characters or inflict status effects? There're accessories that make you immune to them, but why waste your only accessory slot? You could also cast Libra on any character and be able to see them, but that's annoying. In the end I kept Ashe equipped with her bangle item, that put her in a permanent state of Libra. Dumb. And even though you will dodge traps, even though you can see them on the floor... the AI companions love stepping on them and taking down the team with them.

 And, this being a MMORPG-styled game, how does it deal with the player going where he or she isn't supposed to? By making everything based on your equipment. It doesn't matter how overleveled you are(If you go after hunts you'll be overleveled pretty fast), it doesn't matter how good your strategy is: You will receive a ton of damage and deal negligible amounts of. That's because your equipment sucks, so if you can't handle an optional boss just advance the plot further and unlock the next tier of equipment and watch that bastard burn.

If there's something to be praised, it's the graphics, Square has always been meticulous on that front.

 Alright, let's finally delve into the combat system. Random encounters are a thing of the past, now enemies will be roaming the environments and most of them will engage you if they see you. Combat is in real time, albeit autoattacks are automatic. You can press X at any moment to halt the battle and issue commands to any of your three party members. It feels too automatic for my taste, and the game implements the ATB(You have to wait for a gauge to fill before your actions go through) which makes it look kinda silly when your characters stand around doing nothing while they wait for the ATB to fill and finally use their autoattack. Characters on reserve don't receive experience points, although they do gain License points, and you can switch characters almost at any time. As a matter of fact, if your entire party falls, you can switch to the other three and keep going.

 On their own, CPU allies will do nothing unless instructed, which is why you can customize Gambits. Gambits are the game's way of not having to program a smart AI, you can issue 9 different instructions and lay them in a priority order. You select an object(Ally: Any, Ally Health < 40%, Ally mana < 30%, Ally: Poison, Enemy: Protect, Enemy: Highest HP, etc) and an action(Attack, Heal, Magic Spell, Item). Back in the day many people praised it since 'Eventually you can just put the joystick down and watch everything happen'. And it's because of them that Final Fantasy XIII was such a disaster that played itself. Thanks for nothing. And the best part about this system? Gambit slots must be unlocked with license points, unless you want to be restricted to a useless pair of slots, and the different Objects and Actions must be found or bought. Which means that it's not until late in the game that you can finally make in-depth strategies. Ridiculous.

Fret not, Bombs aren't as lethal as they've been in previous games

 Limit breaks are here too, called 'Quickenings' and each one consumes a third out of your entire mana(Actually, every time you learn a quickening on the license board(Of course) you get a new segment of mana, up to three) and can be chained together with other quickenings. Chaining quickenings takes a long time, because you can't skip them, they are visually unimpressive and how many you can chain together is pretty much dependent on luck. They are pretty much only useful to finish off a boss since you'll be left without mana afterwards. Speaking of bosses, high-level bonus bosses and final bosses will start using Perfect Defense when near death which makes them invulnerable for about a minute. IT'S SO MUCH FUN HAVING TO WAIT FOR IT TO RUN OUT.

 I don't think Final Fantasy XII is a good game, but, BUT even though I've nothing but complaints, even though I don't think the game does anything well... I still had fun with it. It has that grandiose Final Fantasy-ish feel to it that makes it feel special, that makes it feel unlike other JRPGs. So while I can't say that I liked it, while I can't say that it's a good game... It's still somewhat fun to play, whenever you aren't grinding or wasting your time that is.
 6.0 out of 10

Month Overview: October 2017

 Tally:
Darkwatch                   8.0
Evil Dead - A Fistful of Boomstick 6.5
Evil Dead - Regeneration 5.0
Galerians                              7.5
Galerians - Ash 4.5
Corpse Party - Blood Drive 0.5
Resident Evil 6 8.0
Raw Danger! 8.5
Bloody Roar 2 8.0
Bloody Roar 3 8.5
Bloody Roar Primal Fury 8.5
Bloody Roar 4 4.0
Spartan - Total Warrior 7.5
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Oogie's Revenge 6.0


 Finally a proper Halloween! I finally finished Corpse Party and Resident Evil 6, two games I began last year but never finished, either because they were awful or my co-op partner was MIA. Most games were pretty good, which is always a plus, and I finally played the entire Bloody Roar franchise, such a sad ending for a franchise that entertained me so much in my younger years. Galerians too, they were games I played when I was younger but hadn't finished, a thing I corrected this month, which also ends on a low note. Oh well, I guess tragedy is part of Halloween, right?

Game of October:

Hey, guys, you forgot to americanize the characters on the cover too!

 While I haven't found a seller that ships Disaster Report to my country, I couldn't wait to try out Raw Danger!, and I didn't! It was phenomenal, excellent pacing, structure and ambiance. It's a bit lacking in the technical department, but if I'm used to playing brilliant games with clunky mechanics, so the weird movement and poor framerate didn't dampen the experience too much.

 Runner-up:

Even the cover art is similar.

 Bloody Roar 3 and Bloody Roar Primal Fury might as well be the same game, for all intents and purposes. Honestly, I loved all the little tweaks Primal Fury made, sadly, some of the redesigns are a bit or miss. Whichever the case, both games are brilliant button mashers that deserved much better than Hudson's low budget and low effort Bloody Roar 4.

Now Playing: Final Fantasy XII

 Why is everyone wearing so little clothes!?

Everyone loves floating heads.

 No, seriously, not only are characters wearing few clothes, what little they wear is, well, little. Look at Vaan's pathetic child-size vest. But I digress, my Halloweenesque games are done, so it's time I sink my claws into another JRPG, and one I avoided for a while. The reason I avoided XII was the combat system, it looked dumb. Buuuut Xenoblade showed me that MMORPG-style combat can work, sadly, after playing about an hour, and trying to solo Thextera with Vaan(which proved impossible, I can only manage to lure one its two guardian wolves!) I simply aren't having much fun with it. Yay, there's Vaan waiting like an idiot to strike because even though we're not going by turns any more we still have the ATS. I dunno, I'm not feeling the combat, at all. But at least it's not XIII.

 That said, as soon as I popped in the disc and the first cinematic played... nobody does grandiose openings like Final Fantasy, be it our first glimpse at Cecil's wrongdoings, Terra's assault on the snow village, Cloud and Barret taking down a Mako Reactor or even Squall and Seifer's duel, Tidus' big game... Square just knows how to make an opening. And this is no exception, I had no idea what was going on, but it looked cool, goddammit.

 As for the game as a whole... I played about two hours, did some desert grinding and... I think it's alright, but nothing remarkable. The combat system is really bland, I mean, I've only had one-man parties so far, but I doubt it'll get as involved as Xenoblade's various statuses and what not. The setting is kinda interesting... but because it reminds me of Rogue Galaxy, truth be told, I'm not very fond of Final Fantasy's Ivalice setting. And the character designs... they are kinda bad. Ashe's outfit makes no sense. Seriously, how is that skirt thing supposed to stay in place? And what the ******** is she wearing over her midriff? And why is she only wearing armor on her legs? Vaan's not too far behind with his silly vest and weird looking musculature. I can't stand Penelo's hairdo either. Balthier is cool though.

 But look at the bright side, my first impressions and overall expectations are relatively low, so maybe, maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe it can surprise me.





....but maybe not.

Review #487: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Oogie's Revenge

 Trick or treat?

That's not a booger.

 If you grew up in the 90s you've surely seen, or at least heard, of The Nightmare Before Christmas a classic Halloween movie. Or is it a Christmas movie? It doesn't matter, what does matter is that about 10 years after its release Disney tasked Capcom with bringing the world of TNBC to the PS2. And if Capcom knows one thing it's fighting games... and action games, which is what this game is: A chapter-based hack-and-slash action game with fixed camera angles. And it kinda works.

 The game takes place one year after the movie, Jack Skellington took a trip to find new ways of making Halloween spookier and in that time Lock, Shock and Barrel, Oogie's underlings, managed to stitch Oogie Boogie back together, and now took over Halloween town. But it's OK, because Jack is now outfitted with the Soul Robber, a green ooze-like-thingie he carries on his right arm which doubles as a whip-blade-mace thingie. The game bring backs a few voice actors from the movie, most notably Jack and Oogie's, and it features remixes with new lyrics from the most popular songs. As far as using the license, Capcom nailed it, everything looks the part and it's amazing seeing TNBC's world in 3-D.... that said, the story does nothing to advance the lore of the franchise, in fact, it reuses many plot devices and situations, which is kinda lame.

The Soul Robber can also take the form of a mace.

 While the game is based on chapters, and each chapter has a goal, the game takes place in a cohesive world, so you can backtrack at almost any time if you so wish it, as a matter of fact, Jack can carry up to four bottles that can heal him, and these can only be refilled on the hub-world's fountain, heck, the witch's hut, the place where you buy upgrades, can only be found in the hub. As much freedom as you're given, the game is pretty linear but exploration will be rewarded, be it with health upgrades, bonus coins or crystal skulls, which can be merged into one of the previously mentioned bottles. Although sometimes it's a bit annoying, for instance, 'Hidden Place 5' must be visited 3 times: First to get a collectible figurine(Bragging rights), then later on in a secret mission to get a herb and then, finally, on chapter 17-18 to get a crystal skull. There's no way to know which 'Hidden Place's hide more than one rewards, or that said reward would change a few chapters later, which is kinda dumb.

 As for combat, Jack can attack with the square button or grab enemies, and then throw them or smack them, with the triangle button. There's also a spin attack, by doing a 360 motion on the analog stick before pressing square that both attacks enemies and draws in coins left by fallen enemies The circle button performs a graceful dodge, which looks so neat it feels good to mash the button. Taunts can be performed with the directional pad, which makes enemies stronger but gives you a free charge attack. While it sounds cool and people usually compare it to Devil May Cry... it's anything but. Jack doesn't get any cool new moves besides the square button combo, which starts at a pathetic two-hit combo until you buy the next two upgrades. and dammit, make it your priority to get these upgrades, as playing with the two-hit combo is very boring. And even after you get them, that's all you'll be doing in the game, because the triangle button rarely is as effective as the square attacks, so get ready to repeat the same, single combo over and over and over again, although, frankly, it sounds worse than it really is.

Capcom managed to capture the world of Halloween Town perfectly.

 About 2-3 hours into the game, Jack is reminded that he is the Pumpkin King, so now he gains access to the Pumpkin King transformation, by pressing L1. I know what you're thinking: Devil Trigger. But it's not, Pumpkin King runs on a limited fire-soul ammunition, and can either spit fire or, well, cause an explosion around him. It's pretty powerful, but it's useless for comboing, which is rather disappointing. I only used the Pumpkin King to burn down barriers... And then, later on, you get the Sandy Claws transformation, by pressing R1, and you'll only use it to defeat concealed enemies, as its uses for comboing are nil.

 Bosses offer an interesting change of pace: As you deal damage they drop musical notes, grab a bunch of them and you'll initiate a dancing mini-game. It's a neat idea, and probably the gameplay element that makes the most sense for The Nightmare Before Christmas, but... you'll be so busy looking at the incoming button prompts that you'll be missing out on the cool animations!

You'll be fighting a lot of skeletons. A lot of them. The Belmonts would be proud.

 While Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Oogie's Revenge is not bad by any means... it's a very by the numbers game, and it's simple to a fault. Honestly, the entire combat system feels like a wasted opportunity to make it more like Devil May Cry and less like a one-button pony. The story was nothing special, and while it feels like a retread of the movie, one that teases players with the other Holiday Worlds but doesn't do anything with them, it's still nice getting to see all the familiar characters from the movie, and kudos for managing to put the ever-important songs into the game.
 6.0 out of 10

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

Review #482: Bloody Roar 2

Furries rejoice!

Hey, there, Gado, I heard you are the new final Boss now?

 Bloody Roar 1 was a very original fighting game back in the day, I mean, you could turn your humans into furries versions of themselves. It was definitely a button masher, not much depth to it, but it was fun to play thanks to the long combo strings each character had and the simplicity of it all. Bloody Roar 2 is exactly the same in that regard, it's not deep, it's very simple... but it's also a load of fun.

 The game offers these modes: Arcade, an 8-man ladder, Story, a 6-to-8 fight ladder accompanied by fantastic hand-drawn stills, Survival, self explanatory, VS Player and Custom VS. Custom VS can be played against another player or another CPU, and it's a mode in which you can alter a few mechanics, like turning on side-stepping, making everything cancel into everything or having characters look super deformed, these options must be unlocked, however, by fulfilling a few conditions like clearing Arcade without using a continue. As for characters, Yugo the Wolf, Alice the Rabbit, Gado the Lion and Long the Tiger return, Jenny the Bat takes Fox the Fox's place, while Stun the Insect and Busuzima the Chamaeleon borrowed some moves from Greg the Gorilla and Mitsuko the Boear, then there's a teenage Bakuryu the Mole, the successor to Bloody Roar 1's Bakuryu. There're three other new charactes with new moves, kinda, Shina the Leopard, Uriko the Half-beast and Shenlong the Tiger, who actually uses Long's BR1 moveset. It's a neat 11-character roster

This game's aesthetics are fantastic.

 Bloody Roar 2 plays pretty much exactly like the previous game, there's a punch and a kick button, while circle is used to turn into your beast form, and then acts as a third attack button. Beast Mode lasts as long as your beast gauge has some energy in it, but you lose it as you get hit, once out of Beast Mode you must fill the entire gauge again, by landing hits, in order to transform again. Beast Rave has been removed entirely, and in its place are Beast Drives, devastating super moves that drain your gauge completely and turn you back into a human. Beast Drives are much better than Beast Rave, if you ask me.

 Bloody Roar 2 looks much better than the first one, animations are smoother and the character models are prettier. Moves flow much better into each other, and it feels like a faster game. The character designs are much better too, I don't miss any of the characters that didn't return since their successors are much cooler or interesting.

Japanese fighting games don't tend to have this much blood in them.

 Bloody Roar 2 is so much better and polished than the first game that it makes it hard to go back to 1. Sure, it's missing a few characters, but I'd rather play as any of the newcomers from the sequel, plus, Beast Rave didn't work too well while Beast Drives are an interesting new mechanic. The game is still a button-masher, however, so people looking for something deep should look elsewhere.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Bloody Roar 2

 How can a roar be bloody? You spit blood as you roar?

Gado looks just like Rugal now.

 I don't know on which game I spent more time playing back when I was younger, Bloody Roar 2 or 3, but dang, is 2 good.

 Apparently, the game's reception was... lukewarm to say the least, people said that it was the same game but with more characters... but it isn't. Kinda.
 First of all, they got rid of the sillier characters(Fox, Greg, Old Bakuryu and Mitsuko(Which I think was the only interesting design of the four)) and replaced them with newer, cooler characters like Bakuryu 2, Jenny the Bat, Shina the Leopard(Quite badass), Stun the Insect and... well, Uriko is kinda cute and Buzusima is weird, but the game needed a weirdo. The artstyle is so much better, the game looks so much better, moves flow into each other much more smoothly and the game feels much faster.

 Like, the game isn't so different from the first one, but all the little enhancements and tweaks do add up for a much better game. And, by the by, this game totally fits into my October Halloween Extravaganza, I mean, I've braved Vampires, Skeletons, Deadites, Ghosts and even Natural Disasters, now I have to take on werewolves.

...and werelions. And wereleopards. And weremoles. And insect people.

Review #481: Raw Danger!

 Open the floodgates!

Just so you know, the Localization Team made everyone blonde because 'Murica.

 Welcome to Raw Danger, a survival game in which you must survive a flood catastrophe. It's a very original and unique game that's pretty much one of a kind on the PS2, barring the original game of course.

 The story takes place in an Island City, in which a dam breaks and the whole city starts falling apart. There're 6 different scenarios and 6 different characters, all of them intertwined and taking place throughout the 24th, 25th and 26th of December. What really makes this game special is how choices you make affect the subsequent chapters. Each chapter has a ton of choices for the player to make, some are merely cosmetical or superfluous, while others can either impact how the present chapter pans out or things about the remaining stories. Heck, there're a couple of different endings for every chapter as well as the overall ending, and depending on what you do on the first chapter, you will get an alternate chapter 6 with an alternate character. Frankly, the story itself gets sillier and generic-er as the conspiracy starts unraveling but, but the way the game treats your choices makes it very enjoyable to go through, it's always fun seeing how something you did before is affecting this other character. Which also means that there's a very high replayability factor here.

There's rarely a dull moment in Raw Danger!

 What you should know before taking the plunge is that the game is very wonky at a technical level. The game is very, very ugly but to its merit, it completely nailed the atmosphere it wanted, everything looks and feels cold, damp and wet, so bonus points there. But even setting aside how ugly character models are, the clunkiness extends to the gameplay, as you'll notice that collision detection can be a bit off at times. The game is very forgiving, and the poor collision detection can either work in your favor or against you. Oh, and pushing objects around is horrible, luckily it's not something you'll be doing very often. And then there's the framerate, which can get pretty horrid pretty often, all the rain and water effects do take a toll on the poor, ol' PS2.

 But if you can look aside its technical flaws, you'll discover a very enjoyable survival/adventure game. There are no enemies to be beaten, although villains are involved, you don't have any means of offence, instead, your main objective is surviving. There's no traditional health meter in here, but rather, you must keep your Body Temperature(BT) in check, as the rain and/or the flooded streets will dampen your colds, in turn making your BT decrease faster. As it lowers you'll lose the ability to run, and eventually, fall unconscious(Meaning, Game Over). Luckily, the game is very forgiving, at least on the normal difficulty setting. Savepoints are rather frequent, and they can dry all your clothes and fill your BT gauge to the top, hassle free.

Water's your biggest in the game.

 There're a ton, and I do mean a TON of items laying around that you can pick up, but do be careful, carrying capacity is limited. Heck, often times you're better off leaving items on the ground, as you'll come back to a few places with the other characters, and you don't want to leave them without supplies, now do you? There're a few Trash Containers in which you can deposit items for other characters to pick up if they come across the same container, or drop them with a recurring NPC. As for the items, they come in a wide variety, you've got the mandatory key items require to handle obstacles, there's food that can be cooked for a temporary BT protection, as well as heat pads or energy drinks that also prevent your BT from lowering for a while, as well as various clothes. Clothes are either cosmetics or some do offer some extra protection from the water and cold.

 Overall, Raw Danger is a fantastic, unique game on the PS2. All the choices you can make, all the items there're for you to collect and the interesting mechanics make for a very engaging experience that makes no two playthroughs the same. That said, you've got to be willing to forgive its technical shortcomings.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Raw Danger!

 And not it's time for natural disasters.

Look at their hands!

 It's still October, and I've fought Skeletons, Vampires, Psychic nutjobs and zombies, but there's one type of horror I haven't delved in yet.... Natural disasters. I actually wanted to play Disaster Report first, but it's a bit hard to find, so the sequel will do for now.

 I just spent 30 minutes, a few more if you count the tutorial, and damn boy, where has this game been hiding all my life? The entire set-up was brilliant, the whole party thing, having to act like a waiter, a ton of different decisions(Some that alter how things play out!), attention to detail(I grabbed the bag before the game told me so, so guests asked about it!) and then, the arrival of the flood. The pacing and the setting make for a sublime first impression.

 Movement is a bit clunky, to be fair, and moving stuff around(That step ladder!) is an absolute nightmare, but I think the game's charm and originality will pull through its technical problems.