Review #622: Yakuza

 Just when I thought I had played everything worth playing on the PS2!

 So... a few years ago I got my hands on Yakuza 4 and I fell in love with the crime drama soap opera as well as all the silly humor that peered its head between the story missions. I almost platinum'd the game, even going so far as to defeat the Amon brothers and, surprisingly even to myself, got the Trophy for the hostess mini-game. One of the trophies required watching the recaps of the previous games, and let me tell you, they completely sold me on the franchise. I was gonna play them all. Time passes and Yakuza 5's demo hits the PSN store. It's great, of course, but a certain piece of news comes to me: Digital only. Disappointed, I completely forgot about the Yakuza franchise. But the franchise caught on and every game since has gotten a physical release, and here I am fixing errors past: Not playing through the entire series.

 In this first game you play as Kiryu, an ex-Yakuza who took the fall for killing his own leader, something he did in order to protect his best friend, and actual murderer, Nishiki. Ten years go by and Kazuma Kiryu is out of prison and back to the city of Kamurocho, but while the city hasn't changed the people sure have. Nishsiki is now a ruthless leader of his own group(Or 'family' as they call them) and their best friend, and Kazuma's love interest, Yumi is nowhere to be seen. Just so happens that the Tojo family has been robbed of 10 billion Yen and a young girl, Haruka, is looking for her mom. All these seemingly unconnected events and people come together to make for one fantastic and over-the-top soap opera that's as thrilling as it is exciting. You'll find yourself making your own guesses as to how it all pans out because it's just so interesting! And that's just the main story, you're free to tackle any of 70 side-quests that have their own mini scripts, often delving into the ridiculous. In a good way. The bland voice acting does help add a bit of personality to the game, because it feels like a proper dubbed Asian crime flick. Speaking of the voice acting, they had some really great talent, like Mark Hamill and Eliza Dushku, but even their performances left a lot to be desired.

 The game takes place in the city of Kamurocho, a city filled with side activities. Sure, you can meander about hoping to come across the various sidequests, but you can also search for the 48 locker keys, each locker hiding a goodie for you. You could go to the massage parlor and engage in a silly minigame, you could go visit the hostess bars and try to seduce them or why not hit the batting cages? But, maybe, the crane at the arcade is more up your alley. Busting skulls will be the thing you'll be doing the most, but dammit if they didn't go the extra mile to sell you on the city of Kamurcho! It all adds up to make Kamurocho feel alive, and like a proper district infested by Yakuza and gangs. 10+ for effort.

 The brunt of the game is like so: You watch a long-winded, but awfully interesting, set of cutscenes and get tasked with a goal, such as 'Feed the dog'(Seriously, it makes sense in context) and then... you are free to run throughout Kamurocho. Want to follow the story? Just follow the pink arrow on the radar below. But maybe you want to go to any of the shops and restock on healing items, or maybe weapons, you can do so too! As a matter of fact, I suggest you take frequent walks in-between chapters through Kamurocho in order to try to find side-quests, they really do help fleshing out the city and showing you just how much of a goodie-two-shoes Kazuma is. That said, do be careful, as random encounters are out and about. After a while you'll learn to recognize which NPCs will trigger a fight if you walk close to them, so you can avoid them. At times the encounter rate can be a bit too high, but that's mostly during the last chapters of the game, since each chapter has a level cap, and once you hit it enemies will stop spawning. You can, however, equip a lucky bracelet if it gets too annoying. I don't recommend it, however, as leveling up allows you to develop Kazuma in any of three ways: More Health, better Heat consumption or more moves. You can, eventually, get every area to level 10, but you are free to prioritize however you like. I always kept my Health at the highest level while Heat was a close second, for instance.

 Exploring isn't the only thing you'll be doing, as pretty much any problem can be fixed with Kazuma's fists. Square is your weak four-hit combo string and triangle is a strong attack that can be used to end your combos with. Circle can be used to grab enemies, X is a dodge and R1 can be used to target enemies. You can also pick up weapons from the floor, from pipes to road cones, anything is a weapons in Kazuma's hands... or your enemies'. Landing attacks and keeping on the offensive increases and maintains your Heat gauge. At first you can only use it to deliver powerful Heat attacks by grabbing enemies next to a wall, but as you develop Kazuma's stats you'll gain access to a few more Heat actions, such as Heat attacks on downed enemies or while holding weapons, or even an increase or two to Kazuma's strenght while the gauge is full.

 Look, I loved the game, but one thing is true: Combat is kinda wonky. R1 targeting doesn't work very well and it's easy for Kazuma to lose the target(Although I think it was done on purpose? Since it happens whenever you dodge. Regardless, it's a poor design choice) so often times you'll be having to let go off the targeting, reposition yourself and then press R1 again. Not that that's too easy, since the camera is terrible and you can't move it around with the shoulder buttons or the right analog stick, so mostly you'll be moving around hoping the camera lets you see that one guy that is shooting at you from afar or press the L2 button to shift the camera behind Kazuma's back. Neither option works very well, especially considering that Kazuma's back will be blocking your view from incoming attacks! And once you start your attack string you are committed to punching in that direction, since Kazuma has a one track mind. You can, however, unlock an attack that lets you kick in the opposite direction you are attacking from, but it's not the end all be all to this issue as it requires enemies being at the right distance.

 One tiny issue that my get on people's nerves are the loading times. They are not too long, but they are frequent. Navigating Kamurocho is through fixed-camera angles, and while they aren't intrusive, it takes one or two seconds to load different areas. Add to that that random encounters require a loading screen before and after the fact, so it can get a bit grating when you hit the last parts of the game and there seems to be a miscreant on every corner waiting to get their due.

 I can wholeheartedly recommend Yakuza on the PS2. It's a fantastic action/beat'em up game that while a bit repetitive and clunky in execution has a lot of heart. The script is brilliant and knows the perfect way to deliver both heavy-handed and silly stuff without generating any mood whiplash. Everything flows well together, so much so that it's easy to forgive its shortcomings when it comes to the combat. Yakuza was a fantastic gem in the rough, and I can't wait to delve into the sequels.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #621: Horizon Zero Dawn - Complete Edition

 Also known as Robot Hunter.

 Now this came completely out of the left field! Known for their gritty and bleak Killzone games, Guerilla Games wanted to do something different: An adventure game that blurred the lines with the RPG genre, and on their first ever endeavor of this kind... they aced it with flying colors. Horizon Zero Dawn is an excellent piece of software that shows that taking risks can pay off exceedingly well.

 The game takes place on a post-apocalyptic world, men and women live in tribes, armed with nothing but spears and arrows, fighting against machines that roam the lands. You take control of Aloy, the motherless, raised as an outcast by an outcast, who sets out to prove her worth and discover who her mother was. But it's not as simple as that, as the secret behind her birth takes her through ruins of the ancient world. Our modern world. Finding out what happened to the world that made it devolve into a savage land, and why the machines are out for blood is a very interesting adventure. The story is well told, although to get the most of it you'll have to go through those annoying, but by today's standards unavoidable, audio and data logs. The entire game took me over 40 hours to complete, but I was a very busy bee, collecting every collectible peppered throughout the lands, fulfilling every side-quest I came upon and, of course, finishing the on-disc expansion, the Frozen Wilds, which is very, very worth your while.

 As Aloy you're free to pretty much do everything at your pace. After the 5 or so first hours of the game you'll be given free access to every zone in the game. Want to find every collectible before doing the main story? Go ahead. I was level 29 before I got over the second, and last, 'big' barrier in the game world. Although I took a detour into the Frozen Wilds expansion. Word to the wise, if the Frozen Wilds are too tough don't be afraid to lower the difficulty setting, the DLC expansion is tougher than anything you'll find on the main game... but it also features the strongest weapons in the game and one of the most useful outfits, one that heals you as time passes. If you choose to do the DLC first, which why wouldn't you since it's set before the game's ending, you'll end up overlevelled and overpowered for the rest of the campaign... not that that's saying much, levelling up only increases your HP by 10 and the skill trees are more utilities than anything else. Weapon power rarely goes up by much, so even the strongest weapons won't do much for you if you go into a tussle poorly prepared.

 Combat is fairly fun, mostly focused on Aloy's bows and other means of long-range weaponry, like trip-wires or sling-shots. You'll notice that weapons, in shops, barely change their attack power, but the reason you'll want to invest in other weapons is due to elemental ammo. Not every bow can fire the same arrows, and elemental damage is one of the ways you can deal with robot enemies. The other is hitting their weakspots, which you can find out by using Aloy's piece of ancient technology, the Focus, which highlights where your arrows will hit the hardest. Elemental damage comes in three forms: Fire, which deals damage over time, electricity, which stuns enemies and ice, which slows them down and makes every hit do critical damage, lastly there's Tear, which does minimal damage but shaves off armor pieces and weaponry from enemies, which can turn them into a bit of a crutch. Combat is way more fun than it deserves to be, and it feels nice noticing how you learn from every machine so that you can turn them into scrap faster. Aloy also comes with a spear, weak and strong attacks, meant for the smaller robots, but I had a ton of fun trying to sneak in a few hits with it, I've always been a bit of a melee fan after all!

 A large part of the game is crafting, everything and anything from plants lying in the wilds to scrap left by fallen enemies is up for grabs. You have to keep in mind that inventory space is limited, so you just can't carry everything and anything you want, and tons of things have all sorts of purposes, from crafting upgrades for your ammo pouches to crafting the very arrows you use to fight and even to barter with merchants and get snazzy outfits. There are a few skills on the skill tree that will help you with this, enlarging the amount of resources you can carry or even letting you dismantle stuff into metal scraps, the most basic form of currency in the game and also one of the two basic elements to craft arrows. Another type of pick up are modifications, items that can be ingrained into your outfits and bows to give them passive abilities, such as higher damage or better resistance to elements.

 I will admit that after I hit the level 60 cap the combat turned a bit aimless. I didn't require more materials if I wasn't wasting arrows on enemies, and I didn't need the experience points. As far as equipment was concerned, I had settled on a decent pair of bows(The ones from the DLC) and I didn't need anything else, so I would just fast-travel to every location and progress through the story. Mind you, this was around the 39 hour mark, every hour before that I was having a ton of fun fighting enemies just because, tackling huge beasts because they looked mean and I was thirsty for blo... oil. But hitting the level cap meant that fights outside sidequests or quests was meaningless. Even though you'd have completed all the skill trees by then, I think upping the maximum level to 99 would have helped with this. At level 60 you have enough HP to get into fights carelessly, so I doubt even more HP would've made any difference.

 There's a reason Horizon has often been placed among the PS4's finest, because it is a damn great game. It's a great mix styles, adventuring, RPGing and even a bit of Monster Huntering, and it all works so well. The pseudo-sci fi story was a real treat, and discovering the secrets this world held was pure joy. That's not to say it's perfect, as a few tiny improvements could've helped make it even better, like more weapons with a more marked difference in power or upping the level cap so that combat never loses its meaning. Regardless, Horizon is a fun time for anyone willing to give it a try. Oh, and kid Aloy is totes adorbs.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #620: Travis Strikes Again - No More Heroes

 B...but Travis' story was supposed to be over! Suda, whatchoo doin' !?

 It's no secret that Goichi Suda is by far my favorite video-game director, nobody gets the perfect mix of bizarre and surreal just like him. That said, I was a bit scared when Travis Strikes Again was announced since Suda 51 had claimed that Travis' story was over so it felt like they were milking the license for all it was worth, and once reviews came in they pretty much confirmed my fears, not that that would stop me from getting the game. Thankfully, critics get it wrong, once again, as Travis Strikes again is pretty dope... if you're the right audience. And I am the right audience.

 The plot sees Travis attacked by Badman, Badgirl's father, who wants revenge for her murder, but things are never that simple in the assassin world, so both Travis and Badman get sucked into Travis' game console: The Death Drive Mk II. Now both assassins team up to gather the six Death Balls and get their wish granted. Yeah. The story is every bit as good as you'd expect any Suda 51 script to be, although it's lacking on the subtext it's oozing in bizarre. Every Death Ball is a different 'game', and in order to get them you have to go through DOS visual-novel styled story sequences that feature cameos from a ton of characters from Suda's games: Diabolical Pitch, Killer7(In the intro!), Silver Case: the 25th Ward and even Mondo Zappa! As a matter of fact, Shadows of the Damned gets an entire level dedicated to them and it is GLORIOUS. Each of the six games have their own unique boss, and everyone is PURE Suda 51's brand of punk rock. Travis' dialogue is as sharp as ever, even if both Badman and Travis share most of the dialogue(You can play as either character... or both in Co-op). It's a bit too good to be true, and it is. This is a low-budget game, so 95% of the brilliant dialogue is text only, even though the legendary Robin Atkin Downes reprises his role as Travis he only gets to spew a very few lines. It's very disappointing, specially since the voice acting was a BIG part of why I liked Travis so much, but the dialogue is so up to par that I was reading it in Robin's voice.

 Basic gameplay is very simple and both characters play pretty much exactly the same, with Travis being stronger but slower and Badman weaker but faster(And has a better HP growth). There's a weak rush attack in which you simply hold down the button and your character will endlessly slash and dice in front of him. There's a strong attack, a jump button and an evasive roll. This game plays nothing like previous No More Heroes, there's no hidden depth to the combat nor anything, what you see is what you get, but it's meant to be this way. Combat is shallow and slippery, sometimes it feels like it's impossible not to take damage, but it doesn't matter since you are supposed to be able to tank the damage. Heck, the camera is a bit weird, a bit angled from the top most of the time, so it's possible to get hit from enemies off screen. This is not a game you want to master, but one you play just for kicks. You have to mind your energy gauge, however, since your weapon can run out of gas, so you need to find openings to charge your weapon. There's also a Super Gauge that's charged by landing attacks that lets you use power full area-clearing super moves.

 ...but it's not like it's completely devoid of any gimmick, hidden throughout every level are various skill chips, named after Gundams, that can be equipped on your character in order to use powerful skills. There're a few exclusive skills for Travis and Badman, but most chips can be equipped by either character, up to four of them. Don't expect too much out of them, these are not for producing massive combos, but to add variety to the mayhem. There's a skill that lets you telekinetically push an enemy, lay down a skull turret, dash, shoot lightning(One of my favorites), lay down a healing circle or have a massive satellite beam shoot down on the arena. Skills run on an individual cooldown system, so it's just a matter of waiting. I wish there was a little more to chips, but I just stuck with a few of the first chips I found since they were so much better than anything that came later because besides dealing damage they also stunned the enemy, but that didn't stop me from trying out a few newer chips.

 Each 'game' has its own Theme. There's a top-down level in which you must hit switches to rotate tiles and make your way to a mansion. A murder-mystery one in which you must enter sub-stages to collect donuts and coffee to interact with a dead man, one in which you must race against other racers by going through simple motions to shift gears quickly and win, etc. I enjoyed the different themes, but I wish stages were shorter, since are way too long for their own good, trimming about 20 minutes on each would've helped the game be more palatable. On another note, the game takes about 30 seconds to boot up, so don't get scared about your switch crashing.

 There are a few unlockables on each stage, besides the skill chips. You can get Azteca Coins as well as money which you can then spend to buy shirts. Sadly, the selection is very unappealing and pandering, most shirts turn into walking adverts for other indie titles such as Hotline Miami or Brawlhalla. I understand that Suda was inspired by Hotline Miami, so he probably wanted to pay tribute to the indie scene, but it feels a bit lame. I would've like more colors for shirts, heck, there's a single orange shirt! It's also kinda disappointing since you could customize Travis' jacket and pants too in previous games, being cut short to just the shirt is a rather large step backwards.

 When you play a game by Suda 51 or Grasshopper Manufacture you're never expecting the finest gameplay, and this is no exception. What you get, however, is a surreal, endearing experience that other studios just can't capture, and, once again, Travis Strikes Again is no exception. The game is very lacking in mass appeal, graphics are nothing to write home about, gameplay is unimpressive and the stages start off interesting but dull throughout their excessive length. But, but, every other part about the game oozes Suda 51. Bosses are a pleasure to meet, dialogue is as bizarre as you'd expect and every stage feels like something out of an LSD trip. It's amazing. There is an audience for this game, a very limited one, but it's there and if you're looking for something out the ordinary, this is anything but.

 Plus, No More Heroes 3 confirmed. Punk is not Dead.

7.5 out of 10

Review #619: Azure Striker Gunvolt - Striker Pack

 Blue Bomber Megaman called, he'd like to have a word with Inti-Creates.

 Are you missing the Megaman Zero games? You're in luck! Megaman Zero's developer, Inti-Creates, decided to create their own 2-D sidescroller jump-and-shoot action game, Azure Strike Gunvolt. It is a ripoff, it is, but Inti-Creates know what they are doing after spending years developing 2-D Megaman games for the GBA and the Nintendo DS. Striker Pack on the Nintendo Switch is a compilation of the first two games.

 The story is a whole lot of anime nonsense, the first game has Gunvolt rescuing a futuristic Japanese Idol songstress from a group of... 8 villains, while the second game has Gunvolt and his rival Copen take different routes at stopping another set of 8 villains. It's not entirely like Megaman, bosses in these games are called Adepts, being with super powers like Gunvolt, and Gunvolt doesn't earn powers from defeating enemies. As a matter of fact, in Gunvolt 1 you can take out 6 of the 8 adepts in any order that you want, the other ones being preset, while in Gunvolt 2 you only get a pick of 4 out of the 8. The games are fairly short, and finishing each should take about 5 hours or so. Both games are pretty much identical, save for the second playable character in 2, so everything I'll say is true for the duology.

 Jump and shoot, that's the name of the game, but it does offer its own twists and mechanics to set it apart from the other blue bomber. Gunvolt, GV for short, can be equipped with five different items to boost his stats or grant him abilities such as dashing on the air, as well as equipping up to four different super moves that run on a 3-stock meter, which refills as you dole out damage. GV, by himself, can jump, dash, shoot and walljump, but his Adept ability, or his Septima, is the FlashField. By shooting at enemies you can 'tag' them, and then you can use FlashField to electrocute them. You can tag multiple enemies at the same time, and using Flashfield to take out multiple enemies becomes the name of the game. There's another mechanic, Pervasion, which makes you invulnerable as long as you aren't using your Flashfield. Sounds too good to be true, and it is, Flashfield runs on an energy gauge that refills slowly over time or instantly if you double tap down on the control pad. Dodging attacks by Prevasion costs you energy from this gauge, and if you run out you have to wait for a while before you can use Prevasion and Flashfield again.

 It's all very fun, Gunvolt is built for speed, and the mechanics help in making stages fun to go through. Prevasion sounds like it'd make the game too easy, but it isn't and if you rely on it, as opposed to manually doing everything, costs you points, which in turn hurt your rank and in turn means less rewards after finishing a stage. And you want rewards so that you can synthesize equipment pieces. One BIG flaw with the games is the Challenge system. Challenges are small goals that you can complete to earn materials for synthezing, the problem being... Challenges are on a per-stage basis and they only open up after you finish a stage. And every time you clear a few challenges others pop up, basically, meaning that you must reply every stage a handful of times to clear every challenge. It's quite dumb, and it meant that I relied on very few pieces on equipment on each game since I wasn't too keen on replaying the same stages over and over again. The games are a blast to play, they really are, but I'm not one for unnecessary padding.

 The second game adds Copen as a playable character, and he is pretty darn fun. He can only tag one enemy at a time, and he does so by dashing into them. Once tagged, his bullets will zone in on the tagged enemy, and his EX weapons will shoot directly towards them. EX weapons! Taking yet another page from Megaman, Copen gets a new EX Weapon every time he defeats a boss. These weapons consume energy from a limitless energy gauge that runs on cooldown. His prevasion is tied to dashing, both share a 3-stock gauge, both evading damage with prevasion and dashing consumes a stock, however, landing your dash and thus tagging an enemy instantly refills it. You can also double tap down on the control pad to instantly refill  your stocks. Copen has equipment too, but it's tied to a numbered limit rather than a five-piece limit, and while he has all this funky EX-Weapons, he only has two supers, which run on cooldown, one that heals him and another one that deals damage. Copen is an absolute treat to play, but he is certainly stronger than Gunvolt, expect to score a ton of As and Ss when playing as him!

 The games are relatively challenging, but all in all, they are easier than Megaman X. Gunvolt 1 is certainly harder than the second one, but infinite lives makes retrying a zinch. Plus, whenever you die there's a small chance you'll get a full revive and a buff(Limitless Flashfield) to boot, at the cost of your rank. There's no excuse for not beating these games. That said, you might be hardpressed to aim for the true endings. Gunvolt 1 requires you finding seven hidden jewels, which probably will require you to replay stages. It's a bit annoying, but stages go by fast and you can take the chance to finish a few challenges, plus, you get to fight the true final boss and unlock 5 Gauntlet stages, remixed sections with tougher enemies and bosses! In Gunvolt 2, in order to fight the final boss you simply need to finish the game with both characters and then replay their last stages. The true ending, however, requires you finishing 80% of the challenges with both characters. No thanks. They are easy, but you're not gonna make me replay every stage upwards of three times, no way. That said, both Copen and Gunvolt share every boss, but only half of the stages, having a nice amount of unique ones each.

 The game's most pervasive flaw is how the script is designed. Dialogue plays as you go through a stage and even while fighting bosses. This huge letters alongside some obnoxiously large portrait show up whenever characters, usually Gunvolt/Copen and the boss, talk with each other. And this CAN obscure the screen and whatever is going on. Dialogue is in Japanese, so it's not like you can just trust your ears(Although, to be fair, Gunvolt 1 has an English voice over option... but the script was mangled, so it's better to go with subs) to know what they are talking about. Gunvolt 1 offers the option to toggle these annoyances On and Off with the X button, and you can select to turn dialogue off before starting a Stage in Gunvolt 2. My advice? The script is horrible and uninteresting, turn it off all the way and just enjoy the game. Another minor gripe comes with Gunvolts supers, you have to press R3 to use them, but it's incredibly easy to tilt the analog and use the wrong super move. It can be annoying when you're trying to use a healing super and waste the stock, but you can learn to cope with it.

 Forget about Mighty Number 9 and Megaman 11, Megaman never went away, he simply changed into Azure Strike Gunvolt! If you are up for some bite-sized 2-D Sidescrolling actiong, Striker Pack delivers in spades. Even if you take into account the fact that it's two games in one, the entire package is a bit on the short side, relying unashamed padding to lengthen the experience. That aside, Striker Gunvolt is everything fans of the Blue Bomber would want and then some.... provided you can stomach the whole generic animu designs and script.
8.0 out of 10

Review #618: Assassin's Creed Liberation HD(Assassin's Creed The Americas Collection)

 Liberate me from this.

 Assassin's Creed Liberation was a Vita game... and it shows. Seeing how the Vita was a sinking ship, and with Assassin's Creed there's always money to be made, Ubisoft ported the game to the then last-generation of consoles so that more people could experience the game. Sadly, it might've been better for the game to sink with the Vita.
 The story pits you as Aveline de Grandpre, a socialite born to a businessman and a slave, during the end of the French and Indian War, in Louisiana. Aveline had potential, but the story is poorly told. You never get to see Aveline become an Assassin, which is something that really needs an explanation, and only get a few pieces of information of how it happened near the end of the game. There were a few interesting bits, like Aveline's Mentor growing untrusting of her, but the explanation of how it happens isn't very convincing. He had a dream? She spared someone? Big flippin' deal. The setting had some real potential, as Aveline tracked the Company Man, a man taking black people into slavery, with nothing but empty words. The game's reveal and ending are the story's highpoint, and it somehow manages to close the story in a high note, despite how unremarkable the rest of the script was.

 There are no modern-day segments here, although there is a modern-day framing device in the form of Abstergo. The whole game is supposed to be a product by Abstergo paint Assassins in a negative light, and does a poor job at it, but 'someone', an unspecified character, hacks into the game and lets you see 'the truth'(5 truncated cutscenes + the real ending) if you can find all "Citizen E" NPCs and, well, murder them. Besides hunting down the Citizens E, the game offers the usual busywork every other AC game does: Collect every Alligator Egg(which may require killing an Alligator), finding every diary page, stealing every Voodoo Doll, collecting every Assassin Coin, collecting every gem, synchronize with every vantage point... there's a lot to gather, and a lot of side-content to partake in, a somewhat complete run of the game took me a little over an hour, which is more than respectable for a game born on the Vita.

 As far as gameplay is concerned, it's pretty much like every other Assassin's Creed game, set in an open-world and having to complete missions, albeit on a smaller scale. The Templars are out to get you, so doing shady things in public raises your notoriety, etc etc. There are three different areas: Louisiana, which is nothing special, Mexico, which is so small it might as well not count and, lastly, the Bayou, and area completely unique to this game, since no other AC game has featured a bayou before.

 There was a clear effort to distinguish this game from the others: Aveline can don different outfits, and I mean more than the costume recolors, each 'outfit' is actually a Persona: Slave, Lady and Assassin. Each Persona has different attributes and sidequests, for example, the Lady can't parkour, has the smallest health bar and access to the least amount of weapons and it's harder to get notoriety with it, however, lowering it requires you to murder witnesses. The Assassin has the most health, the most available weapons and the notoriety is always at 1. The Slave is in the middle, an average health bar, access more weapons than the Lady but nos as many as the Assassin and it gains notoriety very easily, it only takes for someone to watch her climb onto anything. It's an interesting idea, and some missions even let you take different approaches. Will you parkour your way in as the Assassin or bribe the guards as the Lady? It's such an interesting concept, but used so little!

 So... what's the problem with the game? It runs like hot garbage. Moving around feels jittery, it's hard to describe, but the way Aveline interacts with buildings, water and stuff she can climb feels off. And I'm pretty sure, but can't confirm, that this is an issue on the HD port only. Not only that, the game is a bugfest, reminded me of Revelations a lot. Just to name a few issues, during the Mine Escape, one of the falling rocks would fall onto a platform and stay there, preventing me from climbing up, forcing me to restart the checkpoint. Or the fact that some chests don't count for your chest % total, preventing you from 100%. And it's entirely possible to get stuck in an infinite loop, say you start a sidequest that requires you not to be spotted, well, if your notoriety is at max level and the game decides to respawn you next to a guard... well, get ready for and endless loop of losing, until you manage to run just fast enough for the guard not to see you. It sucks. And then there's the hood, for whatever reason the game loves to just unequip your Assassin's hood just for kicks whenever you reload your file.

 Assassin's Creed Liberation is a completely skippable entry in the franchise. I applaud them for giving us the first playable female Assassin, a-then-exclusive Vita game that felt like a proper Assassin's Creed game and the concept, but no the execution, of the three Personas. Sadly, the story is poorly told, the game itself can be a bit of a bore and it's full of glitches. There really is no good reason for anyone to play the game save for fans of the franchise.
4.5 out of 10

Review #617: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Eyes of Heaven

 Certainly, Giorno does have heavenly eyes.

 A few years ago CyberConnect2 graced us with the fantastic JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle, a phenomenal piece of fanservice that, while pretty barebones when it came to modes, was a massive loveletter to fans of the franchise, with all sorts of neat details and finely-tuned animations that stayed true to the source material. Honestly, had CC2 added a bunch of characters, a better story mode and called it a day I would've been just fine and would've loved the game. But they decided to change what wasn't broken, and the end result is.... well, your mileage may vary on this one.

 As opposed to ASB's traditional approach, Eyes of Heaven is a 2 on 2 arena fighting game. The camera is placed behind your character's back, and you're free to roam around medium-sized environments, filled with traps and a few interactive objects, such as boxes you can throw or place a trap on. Square is your basic weak attack string and you can use triangle to end the string with a stronger attack. Circle is used for sidestepping, X jump and R2 dashes towards your targeted enemy(If you aren't targeting one, you'll just dash), R1 is a unique function depending on your character and, finally, L1 is a modifier. Holding L1 and then pressing Square, triangle, Circle, Square, R2 or L2 produces different special attacks. L2+R2 can be used to cancel your attack string(Up to two stocks, recharges over time) or to Burst out of an enemy's combo(Up to one stock, recharges over time). Getting the hang of the controls can take a while, but it's doable, plus, you can turn on Easy Beat combos, which makes you Square mashing automatically end on a special move. Special Moves run on cool down, but they are fairly quick, so you'll never feel like you are out of options. Lastly, the game is 2 on 2 at all times, so super moves have been tweaked to work as two-parters... which means a lot of detail was lost, like the faces characters would make when hit by Gold Experience's punch. R1+L1 is your super move, which can only be done when the gauge is full, and the touchpad can be used to enter 'Double Combo' mode, which runs on a separate gauge from the Super, and lets you cancel special moves into each other for a short while, as well as ending with a finisher if you land enough hits on an enemy.

 Fights end once an entire team has been wiped out, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Each combatant has 3 life bars, and once they lose an entire one they'll drop on the spot, a few moments of mercy invincibility. That said, Dual Combos and Super Moves can go through that mercy invincibility. Once a team member is down, the survivor will get a bonus health bar and buffs to aid him against to enemies, but, trust me, it's not completely over-powered and is entirely manageable by two fighters. The entire roster from the first game is back, save for guest Baoh, which is a bit disappointing, but a fair amount of fan-favorites made it in: Trish Una, SpeedWagon, Weather Report, Diego Brando and even Petshop. The game has almost no DLC, which is a huge plus and most costumes can be purchased on the in-game store. That said, Part IV Jotaro and about 5 costumes(Towel Giorno and Taco Joseph included) are first-print DLC only. 

 Once again, the game falters on the Modes front, but not for the same reasons as the previous game. There's no offline VS or offline Co-Op, which is absolutely inexcusable. There is a Free Battle against CPUs, though, so it's alright. Where the game really shines, though, is on it's phenomenal Story Mode. It's a lengthy story, told via in-game cutscenes, that have all the JoJos and their allies team up against Dio Over Heaven, a souped up version of Dio that can trash Giorno and Jonny Joestar. The first few scenes are a recreation of Part 3's ending, and it was so good that it kinda made me wish we would get a faithful retelling of the manga, but this new original story isn't half bad. That said, the game focuses mostly on Jotaro, which sucks if you favorite character is someone else, at least my boy Giorno got a few more lines than other JoJos. The game does present a few interesting interactions, like Teen Jotaron with his daughter, but most of the REALLY interesting interactions, like and old-but-not-senile Joseph meeting Josuke, or heck, even old Joseph telling Caesar and Lisa Lisa who he is. Basically, it's a GREAT idea, with a good implementation but with quite a bit of sweet, sweet juice left to be extracted.  

 Not only is the Story fairly interesting, but there's a ton of it, it even features bonus battles. Every fight in this mode, mandatory or optional, rewards you with money, for the in-game shop, or unlocks costumes, colors, quotes or victory poses from the store for free... if you fulfill special conditions or earn a high rank. In this mode you'll also earn experience points so that you can level up and develop your characters through skill trees. Pretty neat!

 The gameplay is a bit give or take, at first I hated the game, like, honestly thought it was very bland. But I started warming up to it as soon as I stopped thinking about the game as a Fighting game, but instead treated it like an action game. You are playing this game to experience its surprisingly good story, you're playing it to have fun with all these JoJo characters brought into the third dimension with a gorgeous art-style(Although character models seem a bit simpler than they did in ASB, understandable since there are more of them on-screen at the same time) so it doesn't matter if the game is competitive or not, all that mattered was bringing JoJo to life. And they succeeded. Again.

7.0 out of 10

Review #616: Hyrule Warriors Legends

 A legendary example in how not to make a Warriors game.

 Nearly 3 years ago I started Hyrule Warriors Legends full of hopes and reams. At the time, comments ran amok about how poorly it ran on the vanilla 3DS. I tried the game for a few minutes and told my friends 'Hey! It's not as bad as they say!'. Three years later, I still stand by my words, it's not that bad. It's worse.

 The game follows an uninteresting plot about a girl that wants to destroy Hyrule, so Link, Zelda and Impa team up with another newcomer waifu to defeat her. Along the way they'll travel to different dimensions, meeting different allies from The Legend of Zelda, Darunia, Ruto or even Agatha, the bug collector. The story is dumb and boring, with tons of text but no voice acting, making it a chore to go through. I don't mind the lack of voices, but if they wanted to stay THAT true to the series, at the time anyways, they should've made the script more concise and digestible. As you beat stages in this mode you'll be able to play them as any character in the game's Free Mode. There's a new mode, Adventure, in which you travel through a grid made up of various different type of Battles, such as defeating the correct enemies. Adventure hides a lot of rewards, but it has this obnoxious system in which you collect item cards and then must use them on the right tile in order to earn the right to earn the rewards. Dumb and needlessly convoluted... which pretty much describes the entire game.

 The game plays like any other Musou/Warriors game but worse. Y is your weak comboable attack and you can end that attack string with X for a stronger attack. A does super moves and B jumps, L is used to guard. You know, the usual. But this game wanted to be unique, so it introduced 'Tools', like the Boomerang, the Bow, the Bombs and any characters can use them. Did I say can? I meant must. Generals in this game are incredibly sturdy unless you are way above their level, to take them out quickly you have to wait for them to expose their weak points and then hit them, once you 'break' the weak point gauge you'll use a finisher that deals a lot of damage. Problem? Waiting is a chore, and in some cases you'll have to PAUSE the game and use the correct tool. It's so dumb. I want to smash thousands of enemies, and having to pause to switch my tool is so dumb. But at least you can chip away at their health bars.... Something you can't do with bosses. King Dodongo, Gomma and a few other Giant Bosses are here, and they are a chore to take out. You must wait for them to expose their weak points and then use the correct tool to fell them so that you can hit them for a short while and, hopefully, use your finisher. Bosses are dumb. One time I picked up the game after a while and I had completely forgotten what tool I had to use for Gohma, so I went one by one. It was so dumb, and having to pause to switch tools breaks the immersion. Having to choose between chipping an enemy's health away or circle them aimlessly waiting for them to expose their weak point is so stupid. This is a Warriors game, a fun and frenetic action game in which I can go on a power trip and demolish mobs and this game fails at achieving that.

 There are other mechanics that I found completely and utterly dumbfounding. Heart container and pieces must be collected by finding them on maps in order to increase your characters' life bars. Mind you, your life gauge does increase as you level up, but there are 10 heart containers per characters locked behind needless busywork. Having to comb the stage for a suspicious looking rock or what have you is idiotic, particularly because by the end of it you'll have gone over the same maps over and over and over again. In such a repetitive game like Musou/Warriors you have to keep things fast and fresh, this is the opposite of that. Another addition to the game were AI Characters you could swap between, like Fire Emblem does, but these characters have pretty much no AI of their own, so you have to constantly pause the game to direct them to move somewhere else. It's kinda useful, since you can move other characters towards objectives and then swap when necessary, but I wish you could give them some kind of basic AI so that you didn't need to micromanage their movement... like they did with the much superior Fire Emblem Warriors.

 That said, these characters won't be much use if you don't upgrade them, and it's a bit of a hassle. You have to collect materials from fallen generals, but sometimes they take a unnecessarily long time to disappear and drop their material, so you have to wait aimlessly for the drop. It's so much of a chore! It doesn't help that the vanilla 3DS version runs so poorly and it can be tough to find fallen objects when it's full of enemies. Speaking of how it runs, the FPS is butt, but you can get used to it... but the game still has problems showing enemies, so you'll see endless amounts of enemies just spawning out of thin air, heck, sometimes it'll take a while for the Keep's general to appear on the screen, so it means you have yet another instance of aimless waiting. There are Enemy Outposts that you can capture, to stop enemies from spawning, but it feels useless since enemies can recapture these without too many problems.

 There's a new 'Fairy' mechanic, a Fairy that you can customize with clothes and foods and then you can summon her to use an spell on the battlefield, but it feels so unnecessary, I don't know why this thing is in the game, or how it's supposed to add any fun or depth. Why not fix how you lose your locked-on enemy when you use a super? That is something that needed fixing. On the other hand, I can praise how the game offers various weapon styles on some characters, Link with the Sword and Shield is completely different from the one with the magical rod, or Lana(The newcomer waifu) can either fight with a spellbook  or a lance. On the other hand, and this is personal, I really disliked the character selection. You know you're grasping for straws when Agatha and Tingle make it into the game, but it's not like I can blame Tecmo, The Legend of Zelda doesn't have many 'cool' characters besides Link, Zelda, Impa, Shiek and Ganondorf. That said, people that like playing with Weirdos and Freaks won't take issue with this, and, on the flip side, this is the coolest version of Link ever. Ever.

 While playing the game often times I wondered... would it be better if I played it on a home console? I mean, there has to be a reason so many people consider it to be the best Warriors game. I even thought about buying the Switch Port... but there are design choices, nameless Tools and Bosses, that just don't work well and even a better performance can't fix that. In two words, this game is excessively convoluted. In one word: It's just boring. I just can't understand why people like this game so much but dislike the Musou series... well, maybe I can, this is one of the best examples of how NOT to make a Musou Game, and maybe that's why critics love it so much.

 3.5 out of 10