Review #643: Dead Cells

 A headless hero ahead of the curve.

 Even before the game found itself mired in an unjust controversy surrounding a plagiarist reviewer I had set my sights on this game. It looked absolutely brilliant, and I'm actually a bit disappointed it took me this long to get to it, since this one is one for the history books. Dead Cells is an indie 2-D metroidvania-ish roguelike dungeon crawler that wears its inspirations on its sleeves but manages to be its own fantastic thing.

 There's not much story to talk about, you are a gooey, wispy like thingie that finds a headless body and does the only thing it can do: Possess it. And thus starts our hero's journey from the sewers into the the King's throne room. There are a bit of story pieces here and there, sometimes, since dungeons are pseudo-randomly regenerated, but it's nothing too deep or interesting. The gameplays is fairly simple: Try to go as deep as you can, collecting Cells from fallen enemies so that you can spend them on permanent upgrades or weapon unlocks to make your time easier on your next attempt, because you'll be dying a lot. And upon dying you'll lose all your Scrolls('levels'), collected Cells(ouch) and whatever equipment you were carrying. Dungeons are pseudo-randomly generated in the sense that the game's engine creates them by joining various different hand-crafted rooms, but each dungeon always has the same exits, for example, the first level will always branch into either the Promenade or the Toxic Sewers, but where the exits are, which weapons you'll find or even the enemy disposition will change on every run. The game is also a bit Metroidvania-ish since specific bosses will drop Runes that will extend your exploration abilities, such as allowing the Headless to run on walls or activate vines. Runes are permanent upgrades, so you don't lose them when you die. On another note, the game is an absolute beauty, while sprites are very simple and lack detail, they are very well animated, and enemies explode in a gorgeous cascade of blood, gibs and gold. It feels fantastic. Not to mention the huge amount of weapon variety which results in a lot of different animations of our headless hero.

 Enemies will randomly drop cells upon defeat, although 'Elites' will always drop a fair amount of cells and bosses and even fairer amount of them. If you can get to any of the exits on any given dungeon you'll be able to spend these cells on Blueprints or, only available after bosses, on the Forge. Blueprints can be found hidden in dungeons or as extremely rare drops from various enemies or bosses, these blueprints, if you manage to get them to the collector in-between dungeons, can then be used to permanently unlock various weapons into the pool of available loot you can find by opening chests or defeating enemies. There are also blueprints for 'Mutations', buffs that you can wear to ease your time, although you can only take up to three of them at the same time, and you can only pick one-by-one after exiting a dungeon. Beyond Blueprints, the Collector will also charge you cells in order to give you perks, such as keeping money every time you die or allowing you to start with random weapons as opposed to the same weak sword and bow every time. That said, there are a ton of different weapons, some being quite useless or situational, and paying the cost of their blueprint means allowing them the chance to appear on your run, much to your chagrin, but, in my opinion, it's all part of the random fun.

 Meanwhile, if you opt to risk carrying your souls into the Forge that comes after the first two bosses, you can invest them into increasing the chance of rarer weapon drops, meaning better buffs or side-effects, such as making enemies explode upon death. Cells aside, there's another important item you should seek: Scrolls. There are various types of scrolls, which will let you increase one stat between either 2 or even the 3 of them: Brutality, Tactics or Survivality. Whichever stat you pick will increaser your health, but it will also increase the strength of the weapons and mutations of that particular stat(Red weapons and mutations increase with Brutality, usually melee weapons, Purple weapons and mutations increase with Tactics, usually bows and traps, while Green weapons and mutations increase with brutality, mostly has to do with mutations but a few weapons share their scaling with Survivality). Dying resets your scrolls back to 1 on each stat. While you'd think of using every scroll you find, it's better if you try to invest everything on a single stat, while giving 2 or 3 points to the other two stats for the initial health bonuses.

 The Headless can equip five pieces of equipment at the same time: Two weapons(Can be both melee, both ranged, one of each or even carry a shield... or two, if you so please) mapped to two face buttons on the controller. You can also equip two grenades/traps on the shoulder buttons. The A button is an evasive roll, B jumps, L uses a flask of healing potion(If you unlocked it with the Collector, ideally your first unlock to be honest) while R is used to pick up equipment or interact with objects. Your two main weapons can be use pretty much freely, although a few ranged weapons have a short cooldown on their ammo, on the other hand grenades and traps have a much longer cooldown, at least most of them. It's not too bad though, you'll have them ready again before you know it. The Headless has one final technique, which is one of the most satisfying things I've ever had in a videogame: The STOMP. pressing down+jump while on air will allow the Headless to stomp into the ground, it deals damage upon impact, how much damage depending on how high was the fall. Nothing, absolutely nothing feels better than stomping enemies and having them explode beneath you. It's glorious.

 One of the best things about the game, besides how addictive it can become, is how good everything feels. Controls are incredibly tight and they are tied to some silky smooth animations, making it a treat to play. There were a very few instances in which the Headless did something I didn't want it to, for example, I was trying to fall below while rolling, but the game would make the Headless cling onto the ledge I just dropped from instead of letting me fall. In all fairness, this happens because the developers included a ton of little mechanics to make platforming as lenient as possible so that combat is always the main focus and what you should be worrying about. And it works pretty well, but sometimes it can prevent you from being the most stylish you could be. That aside, everything in relating to movement and controls is just perfect. It's so good that I always found myself trying new weapons, because they'd have different animations and speeds I'd have to get used to, but it was also fun trying out new things.

 The game is very fun, very short, but very replayable. It will probably take you a few attempts before you reach the final boss, but even then you'll probably have missed a few alternate areas you could've gone through. As a matter of fact, there are two different possible first bosses depending on which route you take, and if you are a bad dude enough you can tackle a few alternate areas right off the bat that have you fighting enemies from the very last dungeon, albeit scaled down in stats. A full run of the game will take you about an hour, but keep in mind I'm the kind of guy that took his time to exterminate every single monster and explore every single nook and cranny every time I played, so if you're going for speed you can probably do it even faster. But whether you slay the final boss or die trying, you'll always feel like you want just one more run, it's incredibly addictive and very rewarding. I absolutely adored this game. After beating the final boss you unlock the ability to increase the difficulty, which makes more Cells drop, may open up new exits(although every single area can be found in Normal mode) and even find a few exclusive blueprints... although enemies become deadlier and there are less health fountains on which to restore your health potions. The difficulty can be increased up to four times, if you are tough enough.

 On another note, the basic game is an absolute blast, but a patch was released that reworked the entire game. I'll admit that I wasn't able to beat the final boss on various tries, but after the patch I've been doing short work of him regularly. A lot of the game got reworked, bosses became more resistant against Ice(A huge exploitable weakness pre-patch) and a lot of nifty cooldown mutations were completely removed(Rather, changed to make them less useful) but bosses were made easier, I think. A new mode was added, 'Pimp my Run' in which you can tweak variables, such as your starting money, starting weapons, which weapons you want to allow to be found during the run, how many health potions you can carry, the rarity of weapons)... but only up to whatever you have unlocked, so you can't just break the game. There's also an upcoming free patch that will add new areas, new weapons and new mechanics, such as alternate costumes(Most of them being alternate colors, but some change the Headless' pauldrons!). This game's future's so bright I need glasses.

 Dead Cells is easily one of the best games I have played on this generation. What developer Twin Motion produced is nothing short of incredible, being able to stand alongside the big boys while having a fraction of their budget, which only goes to show that no amount of pretty graphics can match what good, tight gameplay can accomplish.
10 out of 10

Review #642: Lost Planet - Extreme Condition

 Starship Troopers on ice.

 A few, many few, years ago I fell in love with Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii. I had arrived at the HD-generation of consoles a bit late, so Lost Planet was quite behind me, however, I caught an Interview or promotion of sorts in which a Capcom representative, Seth Killian maybe?, promoted Lost Planet 2 as the 'Monster Hunter' of shooters, with slower, more deliberate movements as well as invincibility during rolls. It sounded right up my alley, and Lost Planet 2 delivered exactly what I wanted. But for whatever reason, probably because I heard it was quite different, I never cared about the first game. Well, things have changed, so it was high time I gave Capcom's first HD third-person shooter a try. It's pretty good.

 The story is set in the futuristic planet of E.D.N III, a planet that's completely covered in ice and snow, inhabited by monstruous creatures call the Akrids. Humans are attempting to colonize this world, you taking the role of Wayne, the lone survivor of a team of colonizers who get ambushed and crushed by the Green-eyed Akrid. Discovered by a group of Snow Pirates, and with no recollection of what happened to him before he froze, he'll do battle against Akrids and no-good humans in an effort to make discover his past and make E.D.N III great again. Or, y'know, habitable. The story is generic action-game nonsense, for good or bad. In a lot of ways, it feels like a PS2 game, and I that's a good thing, it's fun, it's dumb, it gets the job done.

 Lost Planet is, in a lot of ways, a fairly rudimentary third-person shooter. There's no cover-mechanic, rolling is incredibly counter intuitive(L3+Jump at the same time), no sprinting and Wayne himself is about as agile as a sack of rocks. He is so mobility-impaired that R1 and L1 are used to turn in 90 degree angles. It's clunky, it really is, but it sorta works. Movement is fairly slow-paced, but it feels kinda good having such weight behind your movement. Plus, you get a hookshot that can be used to scale buildings or barriers, as well as hooking onto larger monsters for more direct confrontations. Not that it's in your best interest, since Akrids have glowing orange body parts on which they receive extra damage. That said, even the hookshot is kinda clunky, with a relatively short range and the fact that you can't use it while jumping, so no crazy acrobatics here. Armaments are fairly basic too, an assault rifle, a shotgun, a rocket-launcher as well as a couple of Thermal energy-based weapons, Wayne only being able to carry two at a time. There are also two-handed versions of this weapons, which make Wayne fairly slow... but that's alright, since they are meant to be outfitted on a VS.

 VSs are giant robots Wayne and his human enemies can pilot. Once again, clunky is the word of choice when it comes to describing how they operate, that said, they are way faster than Wayne could ever hope to be, so they are pretty much always advantageous to ride. Plus, the extra fire power. There's a decent variety of VS, and there's always at least one per mission, they do break, so be careful. Regardless, the VSs are fun to ride, unless I had to, I'd always look for one, and it does add a bit of flavor to the game.

 There's one final mechanic I've neglected to mention since I've no particularly strong feelings about it: Thermal Energy. Being set in a frozen planet, you have to maintain your heat, which you do by amassing Thermal Energy, either by defeating Akrids(They drop more if you hit their shiny parts) or by activating T-Spots spread throughout each mission. T-Energy is spent by just breathing, and it's also your source of healing when you take damage, but certain actions, such as using Energy weapons, riding VSs or using their abilities(Jumping or boosting) consumes larger quantities of the energy source. If you run out of T-Energy you'll slowly start losing health until you die. I only died a couple of times because I ran out of T-Energy, but most of the time it's not really a problem. And while it sounds annoying, harvesting T-Energy wasn't too bad.

 The game itself is rather short, about 6 hours or so on the normal difficulty setting. There are no unlockables, although there are a few coins you can find for bragging rights only. While basic, the weighty feel the game has feels rather neat to play, and the VSs are a fun addition. That said, a few missions feel a bit half-baked, with huge open areas of which you only need to explore little of it, since your goals are always pretty clearly defined. At most you'll try to find Thermal Points, since activating them lets you see enemies on your radar as well as pointing you towards your objective. And, as large as some areas can appear, there's absolutely no reason to explore them since there are no real rewards for doing so. Once upon a time it also had an online multiplayer mode. Not anymore.

 I quite liked Lost Planet - Extreme Condition, but there's very little mass appeal in here. It has a few fun ideas, yes, but nothing you haven't seen before or done better elsewhere. It is a fun time, it really is, despite how simple the gameplay is, it carves its own identity by making everything feel heavy, yet the audiovisual feedback, the sounds of your steps, the sounds of your bullets digging into an Akrid's weakpoints makes it very gratifying. Y'know, it's quirky, it's janky and it fits right into my niche.
7.5 out of 10

Review #641: Kamen Rider Climax Scramble Zi-O

 Just a bad Kamen Rider game passing through.

 I was looking forwards to this game, like really, REALLY looking forwards to it. It was a fighting game based on Kamen Rider covering the entire Heisei era riders, sure, it was missing most Secondary Riders, but, c'mon, it looked so good! The Climax series lasted for so long on the PSP/Wii and All-Kamen Rider generations games were pretty good, so there was no reason to think this game would be anything but. I mean, a simple but fun fighting game was all I wanted.

 The game has two modes, and two modes only: Story and Battle(Offline or Online). The story mode is boring and repetitive, but you must play through it if you want to play as anyone other than Zi-O or Geiz. And it'll take a while. The first few chapters have you fighting a few Kamen Riders a bunch of times before you unlock them, then chapter five happens and you have to fight Showa's Kamen Rider Black THREE times on three IDENTICAL 2-on-1 fights with Geiz by your side, and he isn't even unlocked after you finish this chapter. Chapter six just gives up and has you fighting the first half of Heisei era's Riders one after another, unlocking them after that single fight. They didn't care much about the first half of the Heisei era it seems. Interspersed between these Kamen Rider fights there are also mook fights in which you fight against generic enemies, all of these might as well be the same fight copy-and-pasted each times, since very little changes and they are just there to pad the Story Mode. The mode's biggest blunder is that you re only allowed to play as Zi-O the first time you play a chapter, talk about missing the mark. And while you can upgrade characters' stats in this mode, you only gain experience points for the character you used, even though you get Geiz helping you in most battles he won't get experience points. I lied. There's a single fight in the entire story mode that has you playing as someone else, Kamen Rider Kabuto, on your first time through. It stands out as a sore thumb because it's the only fight like that... did someone in the dev team like Kabuto a bit too much? Regardless, the entire Story mode is a drag, the story is as uninteresting as it is boring and the matches are repetitive to the point of annoyance.

 The character roster is alright, 30+ characters, but just alright. All the main Riders from the Heisei Era are in, which was the bare minimum, but for whatever reason, only the secondary riders from the second half of the Heisei era are here. For whatever reason, they shoe-horned Showa's Black and Shadowmoon into the roster, what made them so special that the rest of the Showa Riders didn't make the cut? Updating the game also adds Kamen Rider Woz to the roster. For as basic as the gameplay is, at least they tried making characters different from one another. For example, there's a Rider Skill unique to each character, which could be a boring attack, like Zi-O's ground pound or Kiva's kick, to something like Accel, who's skill is revving up, and once you fill the gauge, by revving up instead of being time-based like the other riders, gets a huge damage boost. There's also Blade, who's entire repertoire of attacks consume energy from the skill gauge. Not every character has unique Skill mechanics, but a few do, and I can appreciate that.

 Before moving on with the mechanics, I should mention that the tutorial is horrible. It lets you know that there are things like 'cancels' but won't tell you how to perform them, and each character has his own 'Tutorial'... which is a basic 'Press X button to do Y thing. Now press X+direction to do Z thing'. It's hilarious how bad it is. Well then, onto the game itself... this is an 4-player arena-fighting game. You can play free-for-alls or fight in teams, and you can play with either 2, 3 or 4 different players. Every single time you boot up the game it will ask you for a few settings, just as the camera('overall' or 'behind-the-back', the latter being best for single player), whether you want buttons or motion controls(I didn't even bother with the latter) or if you want normal controls or simplified controls. You can also choose to play with Ride Boosters, passive buffs that appear on the arena or not, they are turned on during story mode, but thankfully, default to Off on Free Battle(You can turn them on, though).

 Controls are simple: Basic attacks come in Y, Y+Up, Y+Down and Y+dash varieties. Y+Down can be used to cancel pretty much any other attack string in order to perform an attack that pops up the enemy, so that you can press the dash button to cancel and then try to juggle the enemy. Each rider also has four special moves, X, X+Up, X+Down or X on the air, special moves can cancel out of your normal attack string, but unless you know when's the right time you'll often miss since a ton of characters have a ton of start-up on their special moves. Regardless, the combo system in this game feels very janky and floaty, but , worst of all, limited, so you'll find a single combo that works and try to repeat it as much as you can. There are two other gauges, the aforementioned Skill gauge, that usually fills over time, and the Scramble gauge that fills as you deal and receive damage. The Scramble gauge can then be used to enter Scramble Mode, which usually transforms you character into his super form for a short while and lets you try to use you Finisher, you only get one attempt per scramble. As for defensive options, you've got L to block or sidestep through incoming attacks.

 A rather big problem with the game are its massive loading times. Not only are the lengthy, they are frequent. For instance, say that you want to upgrade your character? Press X on the map screen, to toggle a loading screen, and then selecting a character triggers ANOTHER loading screen. What the hell? But Free Battle isn't privy to this fantastic feature, for instance, after loading the character select screen and picking your characters, the game must go through ANOTHER loading time before going into the select stage screen. Who deemed this acceptable??

 While licensed games tend to be bad, Kamen Rider has had some pretty decent ones. Kamen Rider Climax Scramble Zi-O successfully buckles that trend by offering a soulless cash-in on the franchise. The fighting is bland, the character roster is unimpressive, the Story Mode is a travesty and the loading times are just egregious. About the few good things I can say about it is that I can play as a few of my favorite Riders and that at least the developers tried to make characters different from each other. Honestly, this game is a bust, the developers should scrap everything and start from scratch because this game paints a bleak future for the series.
 2.5 out of 10

The DLC Report: Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid Free Content Update

 Morphin the game into a complete state. Sorta.

 Well, it's here, the promised free content update, and boy, is it a doozy. It's so good it almost makes me think that sold the game in an incomplete state in an effort to avoid competing with Mortal Kombat.... Which makes sense, since the original plan had 15 Rangers playable out of the box, whcih would explain the new additions and the... cameos. And, call me crazy, but I think they improved load times too.

 Firstly, the three new rangers, starting with Cenozoic Blue. He is a blast to play, the game desperately required a Blue Ranger and he totally steals the show, being able to enhance his strength and special moves with his Neutral special. His moves looks strong, and I love the hit effects when he lands attacks, I adore how amazing they made the 2017 movie's Ranger. Mystic Force's White Ranger Udonna is a bit on the slow-side, but she can freeze enemies to extend her combos, she's alright. As for Trini... well, it's yet another character pandering to fans of the MMPR, even if she's wearing the comic's Black Dragon Armor. She's slow but has great range on her moves. I didn't like her too much. This update also added voice acting for every character as well as three new stages.

 Lastly, we get Story Mode. This is a 12 chapter affair told through a few gorgeous hand-drawn stills and voice-acted dialogue, as well as a few text-only quips through character portraits. The story is an adaptation of the comic's Shattered Grid storyline, featuring an alternate Tommy-gone-even-eviler after defeating all the Power Rangers of his time. Now he marches with his army through alternate dimensions hoping to kill every single ranger. I liked this mode, it's not too long, but not too short either and the story is pretty serviceable... even if it ends on a 'To be Continued' cliffhanger. On the other hand, the game has you playing as and against MMPR Kimberly AKA the season-pass pre-order costume, which is all kinds of shady. The game also has portraits for Kruger and SPD's Pink ranger, as well as a hand-drawn appearance of the female Samurai Red Ranger, so we know who's gonna be sold later down the line. Gold Zeo Ranger might come before the Red Ranger, since his render was leaked a few weeks ago.

 On the whole, this content update makes the game a whole bunch better, a few more characters will do wonders for its longevity, but it can't be called 'incomplete' anymore. And, finally, I'm happy I can say that this is the best Power Rangers game ever made and, hopefully, the upcoming DLC characters will make it even better, and maybe they'll see it fit to add a few more modes, like 2 on 2 or 1 on 1 battles, as well as a simple Survival Mode. A man can dream.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #640: Fate/EXTELLA LINK

 A rainbow-colored vomit made playable.

 Well, another year, another Musou/Warriors clone hits the shelves, this time inspired on the Fate series. As a matter of fact, this one's a sequel, but you don't need to have played the previous game, I think, to play this one, since the plot will make as little sense as if you had.

 The story pits you as Hakuno, kinda, a 'Master' that seems to be the Master of all the 'Servants' inside a virtual world of... sorts? Stuff happens, Nero's city gets invaded by glitchy enemies and a new servant, Charlemagne, jumps in to protect Hakuno. While the story is narrated from Hakuno's point of view, you'll be playing as any of 26 different Servants in an effort to protect Hakuno. The plot is completely boring and borderline nonsensical, but I don't think the plot was something the developers spent much time with. The game is made up of 27 story missions, divided into three 'routes', as well as a bunch of 'Extra' missions. For what it's worth, the game feels relatively lengthy even if missions are rather short, which, in turn, makes it great to play on the go. There's no split-screen multiplayer, which is a huge bummer, but there are a couple of online mode if you are so inclined.

 Fate/EXTELLA LINK plays like a Warriors/Musou game on crack. You've got a weak attack string that can be ended with different attacks depending on when you press the strong attack button. There's a gauge below your health bar that fills as you battle, and once it's full you can enter Moon Drive mode, which makes you stronger and lets you fire off a super move by pressing the Moon Drive button again. Killing enemies in Moon Drive mode fills yet another gauge that lets you use an even stronger super move, which can pretty much kill anything besides a final boss in one go. Lastly, holding the R button lets you use any of four Special Moves equipped on your character. Each character has about 6 of them, but you can only have four at a time. These special moves are strong and can usually cover wide areas, so as not to abuse them, they run on a cooldown timer.... which doesn't matter much, since they recharge fairly fast and are way useful than your normal attacks, so you'll be spamming a lot of these.

 Stages are comprised of various areas interconnected by gateways through which you character flies through. Enemies will respawn endlessly inside an area until you defeat the aggressors and/or enemy generals occupying them, as you play through missions, enemy reinforcements will arrive and try to reclaim zones, so it's a bit of a tug-o-war. That said, there's no penalty for losing areas, as rare as that is, so long as you and Hakuno stay alive you'll be good to go. Not to worry, since the game is rather easy and unless the mission scripted it so, generals won't target Hakuno's area. To aid you in battle, you can customize each Servant with a few passive boosts, found as spoils of victory, as well as craft items for Hakuno that'll allow him to temporarily buff your servant with a spell. Each Servant has an unlockable alternate costume, which is pretty neat.

 The entire game is a visual overload of colors and lasers. 70% of the time I wasn't able to even make sense of what was going on, I'd just be pressing buttons and watching colors fly on the screen. Hundreds of non-dangerous enemies swarm the screen on enemy-controlled areas, and they respawn as soon as you kill them, which is usually in a single swing of your sword, so it's not unusual to rack over 6000 kills on a single mission. This brings along the drawback of scoring kills feel a bit unrewarding and 'floaty', since every time you swing your sword you'll hit something that'll just keel over before being instantly replaced by another faceless goon. Which kinda lacks the 'magic' Warriors games have. Generals put up more of a fight, but they are the only enemies that feel like proper accomplishments. You can lock onto enemy generals, but they need to be inside the screen for it to work, which is a bit annoying, since sometimes you just can't move your finger to the right analog stick since you are trying to make mad combos but the enemy just got out of your zone of view, with nothing but a red arrow pointing you in their direction. It would have done wonders for the game for the game to just lock onto whatever this red arrow was pointing when you pressed the lock-on button. On another note, I wish mid-mission cutscenes, like the repetitive general-introduction ones, could have been disabled completely so as to do away with those pesky mid-battle loading screens.

 Fate/EXTELLA LINK is an entertaining but unremarkable time waster. It's a game with no depth and a few flaws but also a game that's not afraid to look bombastic as well as being simple, mindless fun.
7.0 out of 10

Review #639: Earth Defense Force 2 - Invaders from Planet Space

 At least it's not planet water or planet air.

 The bugs are back and the Vita needed great exclusives, so it's only natural they'd call the EDF to squash some bugs and leave their mark on Sony's latest, and at this point in time final, handheld console. Fans of the franchise rejoice, and those that dislike it, well, this one isn't gonna change your mind anytime soon.

 As per usual, giant bugs invade the Earth and it's up to the EDF to defend the Earth from these invaders. The game is made up of 78 short-ish missions, in which you can take any of the three different playable character classes to protect the earth. The game could be played online in multiplayer, or if by chance you know someone with a Vita, via ad-hoc. Each character is very different from one another, for instance, the Trooper is the vanilla generic soldier that can equip 'normal' weaponry, from bazookas, to missile launchers or assault rifles while also being able to ride Vehicles. The Air Rider is strictly support, it can ride vehicles too, but it's gameplay is all about laying mines, turrets or even call on air-strikes... he isn't so good in a single player run. Lastly, the pale wing, aka the lass with the jetpack. She uses powerful area-covering energy weapons that run on the same energy from her jetpack, if you deplete the entire gauge it overheats and you must wait a while before you can reload or fly again. Basically, every character will give you an entirely different playstyle, which makes the game oh so replayable. Add to this that you are supposed to replay every mission in all 5 difficulty settings, encouraged by the fact that higher difficulties means better weapons!

 And that's pretty much the entire point of Earth Defense Force: Kill giant insects, collect their armor or weapon drops, customize your loadout and jump into the fray again. Armor drops increase your total health by 1 point per pick-up, so it's in your best interest to gather as many of these as you can. Weapon drops are a bit random, while you are guaranteed a weapon for your selected class, it may be a repeat. To help you in battle, pretty much every single outdoor mission features at least two vehicles. They control like butt, but they are useful, particularly on the latter missions. Oh boy, are the final missions tough, I had to scale down to the Easy difficulty since enemies could shred through my HP in a few seconds flat. To be fair, most of the fun in the game comes with replaying missions while increasing the difficulty setting as to get better weapons and thus be able to handle tougher customers.

 One of the things that hurts the most in the game is dying, since it means losing anything and everything you may have picked up on the level, and while stages are short, drops are random, so it always stings. But the worst thing about it... is that your loadout may not always be up to snuff. I was loving my time rocking an assault rifle with a shotgun as my secondary weapon, but when the giant UFOs came into the scene, my bullets just couldn't reach the enemy. I had to forfeit all my sweet, sweet loot and restart the mission with another loadout. This happened more times than I would've liked, and while I appreciate having to experiment with other weapon types, I even found a few favorites thanks to this, it would've been better if the game gave you some kind of warning about a suggested loadout or at least let you keep some of your drops upon death.

 While vehicles have the worst controls ever in the history of mankind, the on-foot controls fare much better. Aiming is alright, but it´s not as precise as the game needs, that said, the game is not as brutal as to demand pixel-perfect precision. The R button is used to shoot, which is brilliant, and L jumps, which makes perfect sense. Sadly, rolling and jumping, with the on-foot classes, share the L button, and the game decides whether you jump or rolling depending on how you hold the left analog nub, hold it anywhere but up and you´ll roll... which is a bit too sensitive and will make you roll a few times you just wanted to jump. All in all, it works decently, but it's nor perfect... at least unless you include vehicles into the equation, in which case... I'd rather not say.

 Earth Defense Force 2 - Invaders from Planet Space for the Playstation Vita is quite probably the weakest EDF game I've played yet, understandable since this is a simple remake of one of the older games, but even then it's still a bloody good time. Blasting giant bugs feels great, and the constant influx of new weapons and health upgrades makes for a very rewarding experience, at least when your loadout doesn't prevent you from finishing a stage. The brevity of each mission(save the last one...) makes for the perfect on-the-go experience, since you can just pop your Vita, play a couple of missions and go on with your day. The Vita struggled for exclusives, and while EDF 2 is not a system seller, it's still one you'd want in your library.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #638: Capcom Belt Action Collection(Capcom Beat'em up Bundle)

 No quarters required.

 If there's one thing I love in this world, it's beat'em ups. Well, at least I used to love them back when I was younger. Konami, SNK and Capcom's were easily the best, so you bet I'm quite happy with this little bundle o' fun. Contained within are 7 of Capcom's best. True, a few classics are missing, but you can probably chalk it down on right(Aliens VS Predators, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs or the Dungeon and Dragons games) or because they were console games, like the Final Fight sequels. Capcom Belt Action Collection(Capcom Beat'em up Bundle) brings together familiar faces in the form of Final Fight, Captain Commando, King of Dragons and Knights of the Round with a few games that either never had a localized home release, namely Warriors of Fate, or never had a home release to begin with, Battle Circuit and Armored Warriors.

 These games are quarter munchers, no doubt about it, so they are not really fair, which is why every game is in its 'Free Play' setting, which means infinite continues. And you'll need them, no matter the difficulty setting. All these games are pretty simple two-button affairs, one for hitting stuff and one for jumping. Sadly, there isn't much in the way of customizing, you can pick between the English and Japanese versions of the games as well as change the amount of lives per continues or even the difficulty itself, but it's not much. Noteworthy absences come in the form of graphical filters or the ability to change the size of the screen, although it seems a patch seems to have taken care of these. Also, while each game has a 'How to Play' option, it's not very thorough. Most games here have input-only special moves or mechanics that the game won't tell you about, which could limit your fun with them. Lastly, there's a bunch of good-quality art for each game waiting to be admired.

 Beat'em ups as we know them are long dead, and there's a reason for that: There's no market for them anymore. These games are as unfair as they come, with enemies being able to swarm you or take huge chunks of your health with few attacks. They are hard, and at face value, they don't sound like a fun time. But there's a certain charm to their simplicity, to just bashing enemies left and right with the added benefit of infinite continues while going mission through mission on what feels like a medium-sized adventure. Every game can be played with at least two players, and they become much more fun that way. I've known all these games like the back of my hands for years now, thanks to MAME emulation and my childhood, when it came to Final Fight, so it's a treat to finally be able to own all these games. The emulation is spot-on and everything feels, sounds and looks like it should. Each game also comes with a save-slot, so if you get tired you can just continue from where you left off later.

 Battle Circuit

 The crowning jewel of this collection, Battle Circuit is loud, colorful and, above all, ridiculous. The plot, the playable characters, the enemies and the stages are all over the top, with wackiness being the central theme. Nothing makes sense, nothing needs to make sense. But beauty isn't just skin deep, there's a big focus on landing combos to earn more money so that you can then buy more moves or extend the health bar of your character. Movesets aren't incredibly large, but getting to upgrade your character as you play through the game feels great, and landing hits feels incredible, thanks to how good the sprites look and how well they made the audiovisual feedback feel. If there's one thing to complain about is just how short it is, even for the genre's standards. One or two more levels could've made this game just perfect.

 9.5 out of 10

 Warriors of Fate

 Warriors of Fate is based on a manga that was based off the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but you wouldn't know that since the localization changed everyone's names. As a matter of fact, this is Capcom's second game based on the same manga. Regardless, Warriors of Fate is a good one, featuring five different characters, each one sporting a secret command-special move alongside their trusty combo string. The game is noteworthy for letting you ride horse, as well as slashing enemies in two or even smashing their torso into chunky bits if you finish them with a pummeling special move or with a blunt weapon, like a mace. This one is particularly tough because enemies swarm you from every single angle, but the colorful cast of characters and the cohesive, but diverse, locales makes it a fun romp.

 7.5 out of 10

 Captain Commando

 So... I went back to check on my review for this game on Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2 and it turns out that my notes were pretty much identical to everything I had to say about it back then. Captain Commando is a giant tribute to the genre, featuring every trope and theme you could think of. Samurai? They are here. Sewers? Them two. Riding on waterboards? OF COURSE! Movesets are a bit more extensive than usual, but there are a ton of neat graphical details, like characters falling against a wall or the fact that even playable characters can get bisected by attacks that make it a pleasure to look at. The game itself is almost as ridiculous as Battle Circuit, which is some of the highest praise I can give it.

 9.0 out of 10

 Final Fight

 Not the first, and definitely not the last, but it was the beat'em up game that made the genre popular. The game has certainly seen better days, as it feels rather stiff and slow compared to the other games, but it just had to be here for nostalgia's sake. On another note, in the last few years I got used to Final Fight Advance, which used the SNES port's sprites, so I had forgotten just how large and beautiful, for its era, the sprites were. You know, the proportions are off, the animation is limited, but you can tell that a lot of work went into making these sprites, from the pretty walk cycles to the vicious punches. Honestly, don't feel too bad about ignoring this one, it deserves a playthrough based on reputation alone, but every single game here does what this one does but better.

 6.5 out of 10

 King of Dragons

 I don't know why, but I thought I had hated this game... but then I went into my older review and... turns out I liked it as much 5 years ago as I do now. Characters have a single attack animation, which sounds lame, but it lends itself to its fast pace. Everything is very colorful and fast, and the fact that you level up and enhance your weapons as you advance through the game makes you feel good. But, as good as it feels, lets be honest, it takes a long while before you actually feel like your weapons are dealing more damage... but having new weapon sprites to look at makes it worth it. The game is made up of 16 short stages, which makes me think they wanted everything to feel quick and snappy in this game, something they achieved quite well if so. It's definitely a fun time.

 8.0 out of 10

 Armored Warriors

 Ah! Armored Warriors, how I remember the first time I played this game. It was on a Highschool morning, back when I had dial-up internet, and after figuring out how to run the... Winkawaks emulator, which took me what it felt like the entire night, I left this game downloading while I slept. My father wakes me up for me to get ready for school, but not before I take the game for a spin. And it was brilliant. This is the only game with a third button, which is used to shoot whichever gun your robot has equipped, for you see, in this game you play as a robot and beat'up other robots. A few of them drop their arms, legs or guns, which you can then equip on your own machine. Each arm has a few combo strings or special functions that makes it different from the others which is pretty cool, even though I tried to stick with the traditional beam-sword for most of my playthrough. Armored Warriors is pretty good, there's a nice amount of variety and the game is long enough so that it doesn't get old before it ends.

 8.5 out of 10

 Knights of the Round

 Five years ago I gave this game a perfect 10. While this time around I didn't feel it was THAT good, it's still one of my favorite beat'em up games of all time, and one of the best games in this collection. And, also, keep in mind I played the entire collection in one sitting and left this game for last, so even if I didn't notice it I might have been a bit burned out. In this one you can level up as you score points, which in turn changes how your character looks. Each character has a secret special move as well as the ability to defend or parry attacks. It's pretty darn deep, lengthy and fun, although it's not as colorful or wacky as the rest of the games. Unless you consider King Arthur beating up giant mechs or Samurai as wacky.

 9.0 out of 10

 Let's be honest, this collection itself is pretty barebones. No graphical filters pre-patch, very basic information on how to play each game, very little information on each game besides the random assortment of official art.... but, and it's a GIANT but, every single game in this collection is fantastic. Except, maybe, Final Fight, but it gets away with it since it's a bonafide classic. So while there's very little fat in this package, it's premium quality meat all the way through. The beat'em up genre has become a tough sell in this day and age, but it's great that the few of us that still adore it can get a bone thrown out way every now and then.

 9.0 out of 10

 Now, then, Capcom, since you've clearly gotten the rights for Aliens VS Predators, how about getting a second volume on the way? You could also include SNES classics like the Final Fight sequels. And you could try to work things out with Marvel, so that you can bundle up The Punisher or even the SNES X-men game. Get on it!