Review #530: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(PSP)

 Because the PSP is not forgotten.

The prince stands tall in the PSP's elongated box!

 While the PSP proved itself capable of running Warrior Within and Two Thrones, Ubisoft wanted something... less than just port of the Wii version, so what we got was a 2-D sidescroller with 3-D graphics. It's an interesting premise, you get the feeling of the classic PoP, albeit with all the modern obstacles and aesthetics.

 Sometime between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, the Prince finds himself captured by his own father. A fire Djinn knows of a prophecy regarding the Prince's bloodline ending him, so he'll put an end to the family before they end him. The Prince's father locks the Prince in a tower, for his own protection, but another mysterious Djinn appears before the Prince and lends him her power in order to defeat the Djinn. The set-up is pretty interesting, but it's very underdeveloped, you'll not be getting much story with the game, which is kind of a shame since the setup was so promising.

Combat always features 1 or 2 enemies on opposite sides of the screen. Same set-up all the time.

 As the Prince you'll slash your way through enemies, while jumping, climbing, scaling vines, walljumping, wallrunning, jumping from poles and the whole gamut, all in 2-D. They did a great job translating the 3-D Prince's abilities into 2-D, with a very simple control scheme. X jumps, Square slashes and circle rolls, while you also get a ton of context-sensitive abilities. The core moves of the Prince feel great, although you'll have to learn not to be too trigger happy, since the Prince might remember you were tapping X, in a futile effort to make him climb a ledge faster, and thus jump to his death as soon as he climbed the platform.

 The Prince doesn't have access to the dagger of time, but the Djinn lends him time-shifting abilities. Now you have lives, and if you die you restart at the closest checkpoint until they run out, when they do, you'll be transported back to the last fountain you visited, with your entire life stock replenished. It works well, it's fair and it does away with loading times, although I do miss rewinding back time. You control the Prince with the directional pad, while the analog nub is used to switch targets among things that the Djinn can manipulate. While the wisp that represents the djinn stands over an object, or enemy, you can hold R to accelerate it, or L to slow it down. It's a great mechanic, since it affects both platforming and combat.

Armored enemies can heal other enemies. If you obtained the charge attack you can break their armor swiftly.

 Manipulating time is a great mechanic, executed a bit poorly. The puzzles in the game are about quickly figuring out how to affect the environment in order to proceed, so you'll find your self jumping towards a pressurized leak of sand, freezing it in time to use it as a pole, an jump to the next leak and freeze it just before you grab it, rinse and repeat. You'll be freezing sand whirlwinds in order to move them, and then accelerate them to push you upward, slowing down or accelerating moving blades, etc. It's a fantastic idea, and when it works well it's a blast, it just so happens that the Djinn likes to predict, wrongly, what your next target will be. Many times it cost me my life, since maybe I wanted to slow down an incoming spiked log, but the game decided that I wanted to manipulate the sand whirlwind. Some areas were very vexing until I proceeded the way the game wanted me to proceed as opposed to the way I wanted to proceed. Sometimes you'll also be caught unprepared since you were expecting the game to auto-lock on to the upcoming obstacle, but turned out you had to aim at it yourself.

 Unsurprisingly, combat is still the series' weakest point. Firstly, collision detection is a bit wonky, which can make the first boss a major pain in the butt. Secondly, you can affect enemies with time mechanics, and when it works its great, since you can turn a few enemies berserk and have them attack their own allies! But also... sometimes frozen enemies will lose their collision detection, so you can't harm them. A few situations can turn unfair since not every enemy can be jumped over, and there're very few attacks in the the Prince's repertoire. You can unlock a few by spending collected elixir at fountains, but it's better spent on health upgrades. Throughout the game you can unlock three different swords, but each one has a bonus and a drawback. I just equipped the one that made your attacks unblockable at the cost of making you unable to block. But who needs to block if you can just spam square to death? Although it's better if you time it, since your attacks will deal more damage. All in all, passable at best, boring at worst. It would've been nice to have more opportunities to use time manipulation against enemies, like the area in which you can accelerate spiked ceiling tiles to smash your enemies to bits.

For a simple 2-D sidescroller, some stages are rather pretty. Others are quite ugly with muddy textures.

 The Forgotten Sands on the PSP had a lot of promise. It had some fantastic ideas, and while most of the execution was fine, at times it felt like it needed more work. A few levels could've used a bit more polishing, like the infamous rolling boulder sequence in which you've got just the right amount of time to make it through, and a single mistaken button will cost you the entire sequence. A few trap rooms too felt like they were nigh impossible to clear without taking a bit of damage. It's not a bad game to have on the PSP, but it hurts how close they were to making something really fantastic.

 If anything, I'd call this game uneven. Some platforming sections are brilliant, while others falter due to silly technical issues, like the automatic wisp. Combat can be decent, but it grows stale very quickly, since all encounters are basically the same. Some stages look gorgeous and have great level design to match, while others feature ugly looking textures that make some platforms look like part of the background. If you like the Prince, go for it, it's a better alternative than the DS game, but if you don't... approach cautiously.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #529: Digimon World 4

 It's finally over.

So... we gonna ape Shadow the Hedgehog?

 Digimon World is Digimon's flagship series, one that, surprisingly, reinvented itself time and time again. For Digimon World 4 they decided to do away with turn based combat, and instead turned it into a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, a la Diablo. It worked for The Lord of the Rings, and it would work once again in the future for the Ninja Turtles, so it should've worked fine. But it didn't. Everything that could've gone wrong went wrong,a nd the end result is one of the worst Digimon games ever made.

 The story... is barely even there. You are recruited as a new member of the Digital World defense corps and must protect the Digimon World from an upcoming threat. I think this game is supposed to tie-in with a movie, which would explain it's bad quality, and how little plot there is, assuming players know the plot of the movie. Regardless, if you so want it, you can take up to three other buddies with you. But why would you? The game is awful, don't do that to your friends. That said, the game supposes you are playing with at least one other player, so the difficulty is scaled towards 2-3 players. Playing on your lonesome is a grueling task on the first and latter part of the game, since for whatever reason the difficulty goes way down on the middle parts of the game.

Most useless service in the game. There're very few things that need appraising.

 X can be used to attack, you can use a charge attack, but it's only useful on the first two-fourths of the game, as the last zones have enemies that love to spam projectiles, thus being a sitting duck is asking for punishment. It probably makes more sense in multiplayer, when others can act as decoys. There's also a weak 360 attack by moving the analog in a circle and pressing X, but once again, it becomes useless in the latter part of the game when enemies just rush you relentlessly. Square is used to block, Triangle... is the last button you'll want to press, since it quickly uses your best healing item. That means that when you're only missing health.. it'll prioritize wasting your incredibly rare Recovery discs(Heals HP and MP), so it's usefulness is debatable. Lastly, circle is used to jump, and yes, the game has a few passable, but unnecessary, platforming sections.

 One of the game's worst mechanics comes in the form of items and magic. To use magic you tap L1 and to use items you use R2. Kinda. Y'see, L1 opens up the magic menu, and R1 opens up the item menu, both in-real time. Which makes sense, since it's a multiplayer game, but it's also a hassle since you have to navigate the menus with the directional pad while simultaneously avoiding enemies with the analog stick. Another problem is that using an item or a spell won't automatically close the window, which in the heat of battle, remember that enemies love to rush in, means that you'll accidentally use items or magic you didn't mean to. It doesn't help that if you press L1 or R1 to close the menu won't work until 1-2 seconds have passed since you used the item/spell, which can throw you off. Needless to say, I guarantee that you'll waste items or magic accidentally.

A friend might make the game more tolerable, but he'll hate you for making him play this game.

 The game loves to go out of its way to annoy you. Let's start with loading screens. Loading times are lengthy, and there are tonnes of them. Let's say you found an amazing weapon or armor in a dungeon... you can't equip it right away, you have to return to the hub city(One loading screen), go to the area of the time that has the digi-lab(Another loading screen), talk to the manager(Another loading screen) then equip the item(Another loading screen, I'm not kidding) then return to the previous screen(Another loading screen) and THEN return to the dungeon(Another loading screen). How annoying is that? How about the fact that the Save spot and the Digilab are a loading screen away from the shop, which is a loading screen away from the gateway to the dungeon? Why not have everything on the same screen? Like, jesus man. Don't even let me get started on the dungeons, each 'Area', of which there are four, is made up of 2-3 'large' zones which house a dungeon or so each. If you die, which you will do frequently, you have to walk all the way back to where you died(if you want to recover your money, the only thing you lose upon death, as well as a few XP). This could mean quite a few loading screens. There's no quick travel of any kind, so you'll be retreading a lot of covered ground.

 The 'Technique' system is a bit wonky too. Basically, the more you use a weapon the more you'll level up its technique. There are quite a few of these(Blunt, Bash, Crush, Slash, Stab, Shot are some of them) and you should invest on three kinds of them... mostly because you can take up to three different weapons with you, since you can only equip or unequip things at the hub town. It's wonky because you gain proficiency levels at random, and it might take quite a while before you get your first technique level up. It's a good idea, but quite bad in practice. And unless you raise your proficiency, you won't be able to equip better weapons of its kind, and your attacks will be easier to block by the enemies. Be warned, there're translation errors, so even though the Double Axes say that they require levels in Bash... it actually means Blunt. A ton of Blunt items were translated as Bash. Well done, Bandai!

Stab weapons are unequivocally the best in the game

 The game requires grinding, or else it will kick your butt all the way to Monday. If you don't get lost, you'll arrive at the first boss at level 4, and he will kill you in one hit. ONE HIT. You need to be level 7 to stand at least one. This is why you'll realize that, if you are gonna play solo, you should invest in a Shot weapon, particularly since your magic, which starts off overpowered, will quickly grow obsolete. The middle part of the game is the easiest one since enemies aren't as tough, that said, don't grow too comfortable, since you can still die to dumb stuff, like getting ping-pong between enemies(Just touching them hurts you, and they love to walk into you) or just walking towards you and getting stuck with a wall on your back. It's kinda ridiculous how poorly planned some things were. Also, if you're lucky your digimon will be able to use electricity or fire, in which case you'll need to mod one of your weapons with the other element, since latter dungeons REQUIRES fire and electricity in some form or another in order to clear them, which is completely stupid. And it's not like modding a weapon is so easy, first of all you need to get lucky and find a weapon with an empty slot(Not as simple as it sounds) and THEN you have to find an electricity and a fire chip. Customizing weapons should've been a neat idea, but it turns into a bother if you make it mandatory when a degree of luck is required yo get what you need.

 But hey, Digimon has always had cool monsters, so maybe playing as them is neat, right? You've always had hundreds of hun... nope, you can only pick between Agumon, Veemon, Guilmon and Dorumon(no Gabumon!!!) at first. And then you can unlock about 16 more, which is just pathetic. What's worse, in Normal mode, you'll be able to get two digivolutions(characters) at most... and if yu opt to unlock these mons... you'll be back at level 1. That's right, all that grinding? All for naught, back at level 1 because screw you. At least you keep your Technique levels so you can equip stronger weapons. Except you don't, those go back to level 1 as well. I was kinda excited to play as Wargreymon X, but as soon as I found out I said screw it and didn't even bother unlocking it, the game was wasting enough of my time as is.

I don't even feel sad about not getting to play as my bae Wargreymon.

 And as bad as the game is... it only gets worse. The end of the game is an absolute drag. The final area is filled with Infermon, a Digimon that loves to lower your stats, jumps away every time you try to attack it, clones itself and murders you with missiles from afar. It also murders your framerate once it gets enough clones out there. The game's dungeons are pretty bad, and monotonously lengthy but the final zone of the game takes the piss. It's a poorly made game any way you look at it.

 I'm gonna be frank here... it's a miracle the Digimon franchise survived this game. This is one of those games in which I have a hard time finding anything good about it, but there isn't. Digimon World 4 is bad, avoid it. Better yet, don't avoid it, just find it, buy it and burn it.
 2.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands(PSP)

 The forgotten Sony handheld.

They could've made unique covers for each version....

 Color me surprised, I knew what expected me in the PSP version of Forgotten Sands, a simple 2-D sidescroller, but it's... really good. Movement and platforming feel great, the combat is... well, it's passable, but it's exactly what I expect out of the franchise by now. The puzzles and time mechanics leave a bit to be desired, although I've only gotten past the first boss so it's not like I've seen everything the game has to offer.

 Still, I'm having fun with the game, although it's a bit tough and not for the right reasons. For instance, during the first boss you have to wait until the entire animation for the pound finishes, if you get to close while the arm is retracting... you'll still get hit, for a ton of damage. It's also hard to let go from memory, so after jumping over enemies I keep tapping X to vault, something the Prince can't do in this game, so I end up getting hit before I remember to press circle to throw instead. Traps and puzzles are kinda punishing too, since they deal a ton of damage for simple mistakes, and you can't rewind time like in the home console games.

Review #528: Digimon Racing

 Shouldn't have left the starting line.

It's not like 2 out of the three Digimon on the cover must be unlocked. Actually, it is like that.

 There's something to be said about Digimon, never stuck to one genre or style for too long, eh! Digimon Racing is the franchise's lone racing game, and there's probably a good reason for that.

 Starting the game, there're two different options: Single Player and Multiplayer, and no, I didn't have anybody to try multiplayer with. Single Player is made up of Championship, Quick Race and Time Trial, y'know, the usual. There're 12 different tracks and 11 different racers(The original eight, Veemon, Guilmon and Agunimon) as well as three different bosses. Bosses are simple stages in which you must get a power-up weapon, wait until the boss uses his attack and falls helpless and then shoot. Rinse and repeat. It's as dumb as it sounds. In what's a bit of a novelty, there're more championship cups than usual, so the 12 tracks are featured in various different combinations, for a total of about 10 cups. In the end it's just an excuse to have you replay the same tracks over and over again, but I think it's not too bad of a gesture.

Go, Patamon, go, escape this terrible game!

 The game looks like Mario Kart Super Circuit, but isn't even half as good. Most of the 12 tracks are fairly forgettable, a criticism you can levy against Super Circuit too, but the few that are memorable... are for all the wrong reasons. Some tracks are downright horrible, in a few you might even get confused... or get the game confused, so that when the Arrow signaling an upcoming curve appears on-screen... it's actually wrong. And don't even let me get started on the cave level, featuring one of the nastiest graphical effects I've ever seen, distracting to the point of being confusing.

 The rest of the game is a fairly standard mascot racer. You race against other 5 racers, and you may pick up power-up boxes that give you a one-time use weapon against your enemies. Power-ups are fairly boring, a blue bubble projectile, a red bubble homing projectile, a thunder that hits everyone, a turbo, a shield... the basics and just the basics. There're no defensive power ups besides the shield, which is rather lame. As for the driving... cars feel extra slippery, and I usually played as balanced characters like Agumon, Agunimon or Guilmon. Other than that, the gameplay is passable.... when the framerate is stable. Y'see, if there're  more than three racers, including you, on screen at the same time... it will chug, and it might cost you a curve if the slowdown hits or stops right as you are taking it!

Greymon deserves better than a bad racing game.

 Not to say that the game lacks anything original, peppered throughout the various different tracks are digital noise tiles. Driving over these will fill a gauge on the left of the screen, once you reach the third tier of the gauge(It defaults on the second tier), you digivolve into your mon's Champion form. While in champion mode you're faster, and if you completely fill the gauge, you gain access to your mon's special move. The button to use your special is the same as the one to use the power up you're carrying, which is kinda annoying in case you were trying to store your special move, as that's the one that you'll use first. Using power ups or your special move takes away some of the gauge, so you could end up digivolving if you are trigger-happy. Taking damage also depletes the gauge, and if you fall below the second gauge you'll devolve into your baby form, becoming very slow, although the gauge automatically refills up to the second tier, so it's just a matter of waiting. Lastly, the game boasts about its car hopping mechanic... which simply means that you can jump on top of an opponent in order to devolve them and make them slower for a little while. Lame.

 Digimon Racing is a very bland game. The driving by itself is just passable, if slightly poor. But what really ruins the game are the bland power-up selection and the bad track design. Even when it's entertaining it doesn't last long. Honestly, there's absolutely no reason to get this game if you can get your hands on Mario Kart Super Circuit, and I don't think Digimon fans have much to look for in a poor mascot racing game.
 3.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Racing

 Can miss this ride.

That red doggo on the cover? You've to unlock him.

 Alright, I gave it a go and... I don't think I like it too much. I played the Western cup, defeated Omnimon and I'm simply not feeling the game. For starters, the character roster is very disappointing, featuring the 'classic 8' alongside Agunimon, Veemon and Guilmon, the latter three who have to be unlocked.

 I dunno, man. The digivolution mechanics aren't anything to write home about, and power-ups are so lackluster... I'm also not feeling the track designs.

Now Playing: Digimon World 4

 They should've stopped at 3. They should've stopped at 3!!!

It looked so promising...

 I just spent an hour playing this game, dying over and over again, because it's rather hard, and then I got to the boss.... and it one shotted me. I was at full life and it hit me in one hit. One normal hit. This game is horrid.

 Where do I start? How obnoxiously annoying it is to get Digivolutions? The fact that they start you back at level 1? Nah, I didn't get that far yet, so it makes no sense to start there.

 How bout I start with the start of the game, appropriately? Well, first you have to talk to over 10 npcs if you want to learn about the game. But whatever, I know how RPGs work, so I only talked with a few NPCs to learn specifics. After that boring intro you have to set out, alright, you're aching to finally play!... but nope, a tutorial. An unskippable tutorial that doesn't teach you anything special. X attacks, Square blocks. Whoope-doo. And then you make it, finally, into the first world, and get wrecked in second flats.

 But whatever, the game is difficult because it's scaled for four players at the same time, whatever.,,, but why is the game so poorly designed? To do ANYTHING in the game, like changing equipment, you have to talk to NPCs. Because menus are too passe. And why the hell is the store on a separate screen from the guy that lets you change equipment? And why is the gate to the different stages on a THIRD screen? Why? Because they love FORCING you to sit through annoyingly long loading screens. Even changing equipment comes with a loading screen.

 Man, I was gonna digivolve and then grind back to my level. I was gonna do it. But now I know why people don't. This game is boring and it's poorly designed. Easily the worst Digimon game I've ever played. And I played World 2.

Review #527: Le Mans 24 Hours

 The game can last you over 24 hours. Have fun.

CAN A COVER BE ANY LAMER?!... It can. But it's still lame.

 I'm not the biggest racing game fan, as a matter of fact, I don't really like them. But when I play Racers I want them to be very arcade-ish, fast, frenetic and care free. Le Mans 24 Hours is the complete opposite of what I like, this is a simulator racing game that takes itself rather seriously.

 The game has a decent variety of modes. Quick Race, in which you race across any of the 12 tracks(Plus 3 unlockable reverse tracks, for a total of 15), Championship, in which you go through various tracks in succession, Multiplayer, self explanatory, Time Trials, in which you attempt to perform a lap around a track as fast as you can and.... Le Mans. Le Mans can be played in either Petit or Le Mans 2000 tracks, and these are endurance runs: Who can do the most laps under at time limit, usually 24 hours. That sounds nuts... but you can do it, if you wish, the game allows you to save whenever you enter a pit stop so that you can continue playing later on! That said, most people won't really care about it, so you can play Petit Le Mans under 10 minute, 30 minute, 100 minute or 10 hours limit and Le Mans 2000 under 10 minute, 24 minute, 240 minute or the full 24 hours if you wish it. Each category of Le Mans unlocks different cars, so if you're a completionist... well, this is gonna be one long ride.

Considering how old the game is, being originally a Dreamcast game, it looks relatively good.

 Luckily for players like me, the game offers various concessions to make your time easier. You can set transmission to automatic, so that the game automatically shifts gears for you... which also changes R1 into a secondary Gas button and L1 into a secondary break, which is rather comfortable. Furthermore, you can also make it so that the game automatically breaks when near curves, allowing you to take them much more easily. Finally, every single event can be played in Easy, Normal or Hard, and every difficulty has the same unlocks, so if you're not used to Simulators, or don't care about them like me, you can have a rather pleasant time with the game. And, hey, if you are into the nitty gritty of car racing, you can customize your car a bit, like which tires to use, how much fuel to have(Since it seems it slows down you car?) as well as other stuff that I'll admit I had no idea what they meant.

 My biggest issue with the game... is that it's rather dull and drab, at least for people like me. All 12 tracks are... boring, for lack of a better word, and it makes sense, since it aims to replicate real life tracks, which explains why there aren't grand vistas or whatever. And then come the Championships.... Tracks are rather long, and once you get on the last four championships you'll be doing at least 10 laps around the same course. I'll have my fill of every track after 3 laps, 10 is overkill. At least you can save after each race mid-championship, so if needed you can take a break. Also do keep in mind that you can't turn off tire wear or fuel consumption in this mode, so besides racing you'll also have to be ready to get into the Pit in order to refuel or change your tires, because maybe it started raining and you'll do better with tires fit for wet roads. If you love Simulators, there's a lot for you here. For me... there's only endless repetition. It doesn't help that there're very few music tracks in the game, and the game only loads ONE for every race, so if you go to a 24 hours Le Mans.... good luck.

Driving against other cars... doesn't feel very exciting.

 Something that irked me, because it's a pet peeve of mine, is that there's no car damage, so it doesn't matter how many things you collide against, you'll always be looking pristine. I also wasn't a fan of how colliding with walls felt, kinda like... it lacked impact and consequence, probably a byproduct of not having car damage. Smashing against cars feels very lame too.

 All things considered, I can tell that Le Mans 24 Hours is a well made game that has aged well, even if not perfectly. It's kinda neat how there a ton of different cars to unlock, so every time you break a time record, every time you finish a championship, every time you finish a Le Mans... you get new cars. It's very rewarding. Also, the music tracks, while few, are pretty rockin' and unless you're racing on 10+ laps races, they are a great companion to the gameplay. Overall? As someone who is not a fan of the genre... I approve of this game.
 7.0 out of 10