Review #501: The King of Fighters Maximum Impact Regulation "A" (KOF: Maximum Impact Regulation "A")

 You can't keep calling it 'maximum' if you are three iterations in. Unless it's constantly escalating....

Alba Meira sticks out like a sore thumb alongside the other heroes.

 The King of Fighters Maximum Impact 2, AKA The King of Fighters 2006 is one of my favorite fighting games ever made, mixing the best of both 2D and 3D fighters alongside SNK's fantastic repertoire of characters. Turns out there was a sequel made, albeit Japan only, and now I finally got my hands on it, spent some time with it and am ready to pass judgment on it.

 Remember all the modes the previous game had? Gone. Most of them anyways, this disc only has: Time Attack, VS(CPU, Player, Solo and Team), practice and a now useless Online mode. Characters still have two costumes, the main costume and a new(sometimes great, sometimes ridiculous) one designed by Falcoon. Remember how each character had like eight different colors for each costume and the latter colors would be really intricate and homages to other things? Gone. Only four colors per costume, and it's the simple recolors that made it in. LAME. The game adds Ash Crimson, Blue Mary, Mizoguchi(From Fighter's History!) and a new character named Xiao Lon, who happens to be Duo Lon's step sister. The new characters are nice and dandy, however, Armor Ralf is gone. They claimed that he was too unbalanced, so instead of balancing him, SNK just removed him. The rest of the cast has been tweaked, some even have new moves, but since there's a total of 40 I won't be going over every single change. The stage roster has been changed a bit, a lot of stages are gone, some are new, some return and a few have been tweaked.

Ash's new alternate costume is... the least said about it the better.

 The biggest addition to the game is the change to the more traditional 3 on 3 formula of the series, basically, you pick three characters and the fight isn't over until either team is completely defeated. There's no tagging, every round lasts until either character falls and then switches with the next teammate. I really don't care about this new mechanic, but you can do simple single fights in versus if you're so inclined. As for the game itself, you've got four attack buttons(Two punches, two kicks), you can sidestep, block(Hold back on the joystick) and parry attacks too. There're command special and super moves, the latter which consume energy from an energy gauge. The thing I love the most about the game is how you get attack strings, like Tekken, as well as command moves, like Street Fighter, and in my opinion is the best mix of both 2D and 3D fighters. Everything feels nice, the mechanics and the physics all compliment each other to make for a fantastic, solid fighting game.

 As for the new characters, first is Ash Crimson. He is my favorite charge character of any fighting game ever and I love his debut in 3-D. I will keep using him for sure His alternate costume is hideous. Xiao Lon has a simple rekka special move and a few zoning tools, but what makes her interesting is that she can switch between three different stances with completely different normals. She's not my style, but I love the design and all her hidden weapons, definitely a nice addition. Her alternate costume is Japanese fanservicey garbage, but her normal design is really neat. Mizoguchi is a bit of a joke character, with a ridiculous alternate costume and somewhat jokey movesets, seriously, he can even throw his sandals! While calling him a shotoclone, in this game, is selling him short, I still didn't like him too much. Finally, Blue Mary. I absolutely adore Blue Mary, one of my favorite 2D female fighting game characters ever but... I didn't like her too much in this game. She is a bit defensive, and has attacks that turn into grapples but... I just didn't like how she worked in the game. Her alternate costume is an insult to the character.

Mizguchi can throw his sandals as an attack. Or he could use his knees.

 I really liked having four new characters, I mean, I already loved Maximum Impact 2, so new characters meant only good things for me. Sadly, as a package, this game is lacking. We're missing a ton of colors, the best colors and homages to SNK's history in fact, we're missing the amusing challenge mode, we're missing the story modes, we are missing a ton of fluff that made Maximum Impact 2 a phenomenal game. So, if you're going to primarily be playing by yourself, get Maximum Impact, the new characters are fun, I love having Ash and Blue Mary(Even if I didn't like using her) in the roster, but sadly, there's not much to do by yourself.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #500: Shin Megami Tensei - Persona 3 FES

 And to celebrate review #500 I torture myself with Persona 3.

Not a good cover...

 Persona 4 is one of my favorite games of all time and my favorite PS2 and PSVita game. And I also happen to adore Shin Megami Tensei, particularly the games that came after Nocturne. And I had gone all this time without playing Persona 3, a game some people claim is better than 4. They are wrong. But more importantly, I thought that it was a game befitting my review #500 and... it was a poor choice.

 The game pits you as the new transfer student to Gekkoukan Highschool, and everything is fine and dandy until the Dark Hour happens, a 25th hour that most people don't know exist since they get transmogrified into coffins. But a select few can remain conscious during the Dark Hour, and an even fewer can master the powers of Persona, avatars that do the fighting for them. As it so happens, you can use a Persona and you're soon recruited into the SEES, a band of highschoolers that make it their job to defeat Shadows, enemies that appear during the Dark Hour, and climb the Tartarus, a tower that appears at this hour. The entire game takes place throughout an entire year, during which you'll have to juggle your studies, your social life and your Tartarus escapades.

The new costumes become useless almost as soon as you get them.

 I liked the plot, I found the idea of a 25th hour pretty original, and I liked the characters. While none of them felt as fleshed out or deep as the Persona 4 cast, they are a likable bunch. The entire ambiance of the game is darker and more moody than in Persona 4, tragedy and loss hit closer to home here, and the overall aesthetics make it a moodier game, which is alright in my book.

 Alright, so the game is divided in days, and Monday-through-Saturday you'll be attending school, except while on holidays, while Sundays are your days off. Every day is divided into Morning and Evening, during the Morning you can visit different places around town, buy weapons and items, engage in activities to boost your social skills(Academics, Charm and Courage) or engage in activities with other characters and advance their personal plots and substories, creating 'Social Links'. And it's in your best interest to level up as many Social Links as you can, since this will give you bonus experience points on fused Personas. Plus, these social links tend to be very engaging, although I didn't feel they were as emotional as the ones in 4. It kinda sucks that you can't establish Social Links with your male team members, and maxing the female Social Links means making them your girlfriends, which if you want your character to be a player is alright, but it kinda sucks if you only want one waifu for laifu. And then you've got the Evening, during which you're much more limited: You can visit the mall to buy provisions, visit the Velvet Room(To fuse Personas or undertake quests), boost your social skills or engage in one of the only two Evening Social Links.... or you could visit the Tartarus.

Attacking shadows before they hit you is vital to surviving your trip throughout Tartarus.

 The Tartarus is when the game becomes a proper RPG, you go from dull hallway to dull hallway, climbing upwards and defeating enemies in turn based combat. No random encounters here, you can see enemy encounters as black blobs, land a hit without them noticing and you get a free turn, get attacked first and they get the free turn. But first, let me talk about the Tartarus, the most boring dungeon you'll ever face. Most of the RPGing in the game is spent here, and you must climb about 260 randomly generated floors that change every time you visit them. There're no puzzles, there's no fancy design: It's nothing but hallways and square rooms. You can only save your game at the bottom floor, and you'll find two-way teleporters every 10 floors or so, which also marks a boss room.

 To add insult to injury, not only is the Tartarus monotonous to look at and explore in, the game also makes use of a fantastic fatigue system. Basically, characters get tired and their performance decreases. And if they get tired they'll be unavailable for exploring for a few days. And even better, the fatigue gauge is hidden, so you don't know when your characters will get tired. It's completely idiotic because Persona 3 requires grinding, it doesn't matter how good your strategies are if you and your party can't tank the hits, or if you don't have access to good Personas because your level is too low. So, you have to grind and you also have to be wary of the hidden fatigue system. But what's even better, throughout most of the game you'll be facing monthly bosses that happen every full moon. Whenever the day comes there's no going back, and you can't go back to grind, so it's entirely possible to get stuck in an unwinnable situation, either because you don't have a proper Persona or your level is too low because the fatigue system was so annoying. It didn't happen to me, but it could've, and that's horrible game design.

You have to shoot yourself in the head to unleash your Persona. Because Japan. 

 And as you climb the Tartarus, trying to get to the two-way teleporter you'll be running out of Mana, so... you'll soon learn that it's best to climb to the top, ignoring enemies unless they're in your way, get to the checkpoint teleporter and then climb again, this time around grinding for experience points, items and Personas. It's bad. Luckily the combat system and the day-to-day activities and social links are fun, because the Tartarus is horrible, and the Fatigue system is one of the most stupid ideas I've ever seen in an RPG. Ever. On the flipside, as you level up the fatigue gauge increases, so you can go on longer without getting tired. It still sucks, but it gets more lenient and thus slightly more fun. Slightly.

 But whatever, you attacked a blob and you started a fight, what happens next? You use your turn to attack, cast a spell, switch your persona, use an item or attempt to run, and then it's your teammate's turn and... it turns out you can't issue commands to your allies. Yes, throughout the entire game you'll be at the mercy of your three computer allies. And they are idiots. People claim that you can issue 'tactics' and thus it's a non-issue, but they are lying. The AI will never, EVER cease to amaze you in their stupidity. I may issue everyone to 'Knock down' the enemy, but they will ignore it. I will set my healer to 'Heal/support' and she'll use a full-healing spell on a character that didn't need it or won't realize when it's better to use a single-team mate healing spell or a party based one. This one time Yukari, my designated healer, was set on Heal/support, but instead of healing me, and keep in mind that if your character dies you lose, thought she could take on the boss and.... missed. And had the boss used another spell, instead of a low-accuracy Light spell, it could've costed me the entire boss fight. Because she decided that it was a better idea to attempt to attack the enemy rather than heal me. Trust me, the AI is stupid, the AI will cost you a few fights(which could mean losing up to half an hour worth of progress if you're grinding) and you'll hate them every step of the way.

Hopefully you enjoy the battle system, because you'll have to grind quite a lot.

  Once you get over how dumb the AI is, you'll discover that the combat system is actually quite brilliant, which is a no brainer considering it takes after Nocturne. Basically, hitting an enemy with their weakness knocks them down and gives you an extra turn. If you manage to knock down every enemy you can use a full-party attack that deals massive damage. The same holds true for the enemy, while they don't have the 'All-out attack' they can knock you down and get extra turns. It's a fun system that would've been even better if you could control your allies. Landing the final hit on an enemy, finishing a battle with an all-out attack or sometimes just because, after a battle you'll be given the opportunity to earn a new Persona.

 Personas are kinda like Pokemon that only the main character can equip. You can carry about 10 of them, and each Persona has their own skills, resistances and weaknesses. Sadly, Personas can only learn so many attacks and they need a lot of experience points to level up, so you'll be fusing them in the Velvet Room over and over again to get better Personas. Sadly, this is an older Shin Megami Tensei game, so you can to keep selecting the two Personas you want to fuse until the resulting Persona shows that it will inherit the skills you want it to inherit, no pick-and-choosing here.

If the reaper comes for you.... RUN!

 This being a SMT game also means that it's actually quite challenging. Many times the answer to a difficult boss is having the right Persona. Sadly, and particularly on the first few Tartarus boss battles, you'll be forced to babysit the AIs and act as the healer, since your CPU allies simply won't be able to perform the job of healers and it'll be up to you. Which kinda sounds like a nitpick, but it sucks having to maintain the health of these useless AIs. If only I could've issued orders this wouldn't have been so annoying. But nope, gotta sit there, spam healing spells and hope that these AIs dish damage. Luckily, later in the game you can relegate another AI as the healer and you can do the fun stuff.

 Lastly, this is the FES rerelease of Persona 3, which means that it has new Persona, new weapon-Persona fusion things, a few new events, new costumes and a few other niceties, as well as a pretty lengthy, and very hard, second story: The Answer. It's pretty lengthy and it goes a bit more in-depth with the cast, but it's not very interesting. Also, there're no social links and no Persona compendium(Basically, you can't summon Personas that you used to own).

You can doze off during class to attempt to mend your tired status.

 Persona 3 is.... very dated. Having played Persona 4, it was almost impossible for me to tolerate this one. Not being able to directly control your AIs is idiotic since the AI sucks. The Tarturs is very boring, and while Persona 4's dungeons were also made up of hallways and square rooms, at least they had different themes which made them feel more unique. The Social Links, while interesting, didn't really do it for me as much as the ones in Persona 4 did. That said, I can appreciate all it did for the franchise, the Social Links were a brilliant idea, having to juggle your academics and your social life with battling was very original and basically set the blueprint for future Persona games.

 What I can say in the game's favor is that it really gets better as you go along. The more you play the more you get invested in all the different subplots, the more you level up the longer you can go ignoring the horrible fatigue system and the more you level up the less a mistake from your AI allies will cost you. If you really want to play Persona 3 do it before playing 4, lest you realize just how much better this game could've been.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Shin Megami Tensei - Persona 3 FES

 A Festival of emo boys shooting themselves in the head.

 I love Shin Megami Tensei, and Persona 4 is one of my favorite games ever, probably my favorite PS2 game ever, and yet... I never got around playing Persona 3, until now.

 There's a bunch of things I liked, like the ambiance. Everything feels darker, eviler than in Persona 4, a very welcome change of pace. I also like most of the gameplay, which is to be expected considering that the game runs on a modified version of Nocturne's engine.

 Buuuut there're also things I didn't like. The Tartarus seems kinda lame, a randomized dungeon that looks the same all the way through? And not being able to control my allies, seriously? I will be fuming if the AI costs me a battle. And I know, I know, it's not the first SMT game to have CPU allies, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. And I don't. Also, I think there's a tiredness factor when exploring the Tartarus, and I hope it's not as restrictive as I'm imagining.

 Yeah, there're definitely more things I disliked than the ones I liked, buuuuuuut I think the ones I liked carry more weight. I think, but only time will tell. I'm also planning on playing 'The Answer', so it might be a while before I come back to this lovely ol' blog.

Month Overview: November 2017

 Tally:
Final Fantasy XII 6.0
Samurai Western 6.0
Rygar - The Legendary Adventure 7.5
Beyond Good & Evil 7.5
Brave Fencer Musashi 8.0
God of War 9.0
Oni 4.0
XIII 8.0
Bujingai - The Forsaken City 4.5
Psychonauts 9.0
Way of the Samurai 2 6.0
Drakan - The Ancient Gate 7.5


 This month I played a nice mixture of games I had play before and games that were new to me. Some games were a nice reminder of my youth, while others... were better left off in my memories. And now comes the big #500, which is kinda amazing. I got to play and write about 500 different(Erm... a few were the game game but on a different platform, but then again, I count 'Collections' as a single game, so I think it evens out) games. I had a tough time selecting game #500, and as much as I would've liked it to be Suda51's 'The Silver Case' it probably won't arrive any time soon, so I settled with Persona 3. Hopefully it won't take me the entire month of December, but then again, hopefully I start working in December.

 Runner-up:

 Guess we'll never know why the blades disappear after a while...

 It took me by surprise just how well God of War 1 has aged. Production values are through the roof, the combat feels very nice, the challenge is just right and the game is just a pleasure to look at. The story is pretty decent too, and I love the way it's told. I do agree that it trades a bit of depth for spectacle, but man, does the game go for epic moments and set-pieces.

 Game of November 2017:

Shame the mini-sequel is VR only.

 I most definitely did not expect to fall in love with this game the way I did. I don't think my expectations were high, but man did it surprise me. I loved the amount of depth characters had, how their minds worked as a reflection of their personality, filled with tons of subtle, and not so subtle, details. The gameplay was fun and funny too, thanks for the wide variety of reactions every character has to almost everything Raz can show them or do to them. It's a game that actually manages to be funny, plus, the artstyle is absolutely delightful, which goes hand in hand with some of the very creative stages. The Milkman level is one for the ages...

Drakan - The Ancient Gate Addendum

 Second's time the charm. With cheats.

 At first I was angry, angry that the game freezing killed my game.... but I found out the game had cheats, so... I used the invulnerability cheat, to speed through everything, and the experience and money cheat to make up for what I would lose avoiding optional enemies or quests, and got to where the game screwed up and... then proceeded to finish the game. And boy oh boy did I find out a few things.

 Firstly, the hotslot system actually has a way to cancel the selection, just press triangle. I got used to it pretty quickly, so my complaints about it are pretty much voided.

 Secondly, Arokh actually learns two more breath attacks. Do they make a difference? Not really, but it was worth mentioning.

 Thirdly, Arokh is an idiot. At least twice Arokh had trouble coming to my location when I called to him, once I actually had to backtrack through the dungeon to the entrance so that he would come to my side. Pretty annoying. But the cherry on top came the moment I got on his back and... got stuck inside a rock. It didn't matter how much I moved around, Arokh couldn't land and thus I got stuck and had to restart.

 Overall, my 7.5 score still stands.

Review #499: Drakan - The Ancient Gate

 Can badass dragons overcome questionable game design?

The heroes.

 Drakan The Ancient Gate is the PS2 exclusive sequel to the PC exclusive Drakan game. It's an action-adventure western RPG starring Rynn and her Dragon companion Arokh, both heroes sharing a bond and if either dies the other one dies as well. Unless you play the prequel, in which case the dragon won't die if its partner dies, it's a one-way street. But I digress, why make a direct sequel on another platform is beyond me, but here we are.

 The story is pretty sparse for a western RPG, and there's a lot of potential within the world of Drakan, having Arokh be a part of this 'elder breed' of Dragons that can open... ancient gates, or this bond between rider and dragon. And the main antagonists, the Desert Lord look great, but it's never expanded too much about them. Most of the time I was doing stuff because I was told to do it, not because I was invested in the world, as much as I wanted to. This is a game you will play because the exploration is great and the gameplay is competent, not because you want to get lost in its world.

Bows don't break, they just... run out of arrows.

 Rynn is proficient with the bow, with which she can aim in first person camera, bladed and blunt weapons, with which she can attack and parry and magic. The bow works well for what it is, either lock on with R2 and shoot away or aim in first person mode. Melee combat is a bit clunky, the parry doesn't work too well as in you have to predict an attack rather than react to it. More often than not I found myself running in circles around enemies, in the direction opposite of the hand they had a weapon in, slashing over and over again until they fell. And then there's magic. You have to hold Circle and then move the analog stick in different directions to cast runes and then equip your magic spell. It was too cumbersome for my liking, so I just ignored magic altogether. As a whole, I won't lie, the combat is merely competent. It's not great, it's not bad, but it's something you'll deal with rather than enjoy. In open-ended areas you can just ride Arokh and burn enemies to death from above anyways.

 The hot-slot system is a neat idea but has a few kinks. Basically, you can slot a few items of your inventory into this 'hotslot', and then, by tapping R1, you can then switch between these weapons, potions or what have you and equip them with X. The problem arises when you accidentally press R1, for instance, and then you're stuck with the menu, so you either equip another item or unequip the one you're using. In the heat of battle this can become extremely vexing.

Despite clunky controls, flying Arokh is more fun than it deserves to be.

 Ah, yes, Arokh, you red-dragon. In open areas, meaning outside dungeons like forests or caves, you can ride Arokh. He can shoot fire, or thunder, and there're a few enemy dragons that kinda demand you ride Arokh, unless you wanna be toast. Riding around Arokh is fun, even if the controls aren't particularly smooth, and it's always fun coming across secret areas by yourself, like the evil giant rooster enemy hidden in a cave on the first overworld. The game's world isn't particularly beautiful or original, but I'd lie if I didn't say that I didn't have fun trekking through mountains, caves and the such, alternating between walking or flying on Arokh's back.

 Leveling up in the game is a bit underwhelming, since your stats don't increase at all. You do gain the ability to equip certain armors that require you having a certain level, and you do gain a skill point to spend in either Melee, Archery or Spells but... it doesn't enhance your damage, it only allows you to equip better weapons, bows or spells. It kinda saps the fun of growing stronger. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that everything but Rynn's starting dagger breaks. Everything. So don't grow fond of any piece of equipment. And while you can fix it at a blacksmith, it'll lose 10% of its maximum durability, so it's a better idea to just replace whatever's broken.

Even when you leave Arokh, he may occasionally aid you in battle.

 One of the game's worst design choices is the inventory, there simply isn't enough space. You need at least four slots for an armor, more if you also want a shield, you also need to carry potions to heal yourself and you also need to take spare weapons with you, since they will probably break throughout the course of long dungeons. The game ill often leave weapons lying around, but they are probably not as good as the ones you could've purchased on a shop. This gets kinda annoying on the latter parts on the game, when you'll also be encumbered with plot-related items that take up space in your inventory, thus locking you out of carrying more spare weapons.

 Speaking of latter parts of the game, during the snowy overworld's section you'll eventually have to travel through an Ice Golem cave and... this part is absolutely terrible. Ice golems can snipe you from far, far away, and they can whittle down your health bar in a few seconds flat. I did not enjoy that part of the game. I was forced to cheese the game by saving constantly after clearing different sections. It's the only part in the game which I fell was poorly designed.

Armor is expensive, but at least it looks cool.

 And to play the game you need 1.5 MBs on your memory card, and you need a memory card. You can't transition between areas without a memory card, since it seems like it saves some of the world's data on your file? See, my game froze when I was travelling to a different area, and when I rebooted my game... I lost all my progress. Because the game didn't finish saving the world data on the memory card. It's such a baffling design choice, and one that cost me the ending of the game. And there's no way I'm replaying over 20 hours of the same game. I gave it a chance, it screwed me over, I'm not coming back. I'm not. And I just sounded like Tommy Wiseau typing that. I'm not happy.

 Overall, I thought Drakan was a very entertaining game. It doesn't have the best gameplay out there, it has a few questionable decisions, but adventuring through the land of...erm... Drakan? was fun. I loved coming across enemy encampments and looting them, I loved coming across stuff by myself, I loved delving deeper into caves and forests and I adored riding Arokh. Drakan: The Ancient Gate is a clear case of a game that is more than the sum of its parts.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Drakan - The Ancient Gate

 Time for a good old fashioned western RPG.

The cover has this weird painted style I can't quite describe.

 So, there I was kickin' butt and taking names, feeling emboldened I took the Inquisitor sidequest, found the dungeon, was forced to save(It seems like you are FORCED to save the game in order to progress, fun! The game wouldn't load the next area until I accepted to save my file) and then... came across trolls. Each magic spell would take out a fourth of my HP, but it didn't matter, I'd close in on them, run in circles right next to them and slash them to death. But eventually they outnumbered and murdered me. A cruel reminder that Western RPGs are open ended, but they also allow you to get to areas way sooner than your level would allow.

 I've played very little, but I'm enjoying it a great deal. The character models certainly are... old, the female mage is ridiculously top-heavy and other characters look weird, but Rynn's animations are alright. The combat is a bit clunky, like you have to time the parry so that you predict an attack rather than react to it, but as a whole it's alright.

 As for my story with Drakan, I remember reading about the first game on PC Gaming magazines, but I never got to play it. Eventually I learned about the PS2 game, but for whatever reason I wasn't too interested on it... something that would change come present day. And here I am, playing Drakan and enjoying it.