The DLC Report: Samurai Shodown DLC #3 - Basara

 I see dead people. Well, Basara does.

 I don't like Basara, I never really did. However, ever since he was first introduced he became a staple sadist character in the series, and Samurai Shodown doesn't really feel the same without him, so I'm glad he's in. I'm not fond of his design, but I know a lot of people are, so I'm glad he made the transition so well.

 I also enjoy having a new style added to the game, Basara is a long-range trickster, with underground Shoryukens and boomerang-projectiles, not to mention his Medium and Strong attacks being long-ranged. I'm not a fan of trickster-style characters, but I'm glad we get such a unique new toolset into the game.  Definitely a great addition to the game, one I'm not fond of but one I can respect.
 8.0 out of 10

The DLC Report: Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid Season 2 Quantum Ranger Eric Myers

 Now we're cookin' !

 The second character from the season pass has arrived, and it's the Quantum Ranger! While I would've preferred the original american sixth Ranger, the Titanium Ranger, they made this guy one cool cat.

 This guy's basic attacks are pretty slow, his Strong attack seems particularly tough to combo into, but his specials are amazing. B is a blaster shot that can be fired multiple times, Jason eat your heart out, and it can be cancelled into either Back+B, for the Aerial Sword slash or Forward+B for the aerial blast. Doesn't stop there, he also gets his own unique Down+B move, for which he shots upwards at an angle and can then cancel into other moves. Options, this guy's got them. The cherry on top is his Super, which is actually a Mode change that lasts a few seconds, and changes his entire moveset, as he now fights with a blade.

 I really liked this guy, he is as fun as the Gold Zeo Ranger and the Time Force Pink Ranger. A neat addition compared to the Shadow Ranger. Now the Developers should focus on making better alternate costumes, and more variations per characters, I'm getting tired of all the red/black alternates....
 8.0 out of 10

Review #706: The Haunted Mansion

 Where's Luigi when you need him?

 The Haunted Mansion is Disney's ride that keeps on giving, having had a movie adaptation, a new movie adaptation in the works, comic books and even a videogame, our main attraction on this day. This is an adventure-puzzle game in which you play as Zeke Holloway, the Mansion's caretaker, as he collects all 6 Spirit Gem Stones and all 999 lost spirits. It's not as bad as it sounds!

 The game has a decent premise, and an equally good set-up: you're thrown into the mansion, but each in order to open each door you require to have collected a specific amount of spirits. There are three main "areas" in the Mansion, the Foyer, the Hallway and the Upper Hallway(The last one I've paraphrased), and each one has a different amount of doors for you to visit. What's interesting is that you'll get to choose between different doors every now and then, so you can tackle a few rooms in slightly different orders.

 Each room in the Mansion has its own puzzle to figure out and complete so that you can turn on the lights and begin collecting spirits. You may need to step on various rugs in order to change the furniture's layout so that you can reach the light's lever, you might need to finish a game of billiards in which the white ball chases you, or maybe platform through flying books acting as platforms, each room has its own unique puzzle, and that's pretty neat. Once you turn on the lights, you'll be allowed to interact with the room itself in order to search for Spirits, and maybe, if you're lucky, get yourself some permanent health upgrades. The game tells you how many Spirits are in each room, and you usually find them in bundles of five, so you won't find yourself struggling as you search for them.

 As you try to solve each puzzle you'll be assaulted by evil ghosts, giant spiders, gargoyles and maybe even suits of armor, luckily Zeke is armed by a lamp that doubles as an energy machine gun that can shoot as much and as fast as you can tap the R1 button. Enemies will attack you both before and after turning on the lights, so you're never safe. As you progress through the game and collect the Spirit GemStones you'll get to upgrade your lamp, so that you can charge your shots up to two levels. That said, the final power up might not be as useful as the shot it replaces, which is kinda disappointing since there's no going back.

 As interesting as the premise is, and as fun as the game sounds in theory, the gameplay is very janky. Movement in the game lacks weight, so jumping and running does't feel very good. Combat is downright boring, just hold L1 to target an enemy, and then mash R1 or  hold it to charge your shots to hurt your enemies.  The Mansion itself isn't very fun either, there are some interesting rooms every now and then, but nothing worth writing home about.

 Disney's The Haunted Mansion is just your average run-of-the-mill licensed game. It does nothing particularly well, but it has a few good ideas, sadly, the execution really leaves a lot to be desired.  That said, this is definitely a better alternative to the Eddie Murphy movie! 

5.0 out of 10

Review #705: Obscure - The Aftermath

 Anything's good enough to get high if you believe hard enough.

 Seems this was my October of Horror-game sequels: Resident Evil 2, The Evil Within, MediEvil 2 and Castlevania - Legacy of Darkness, the latter two being sequels to games I played the very last October. Not to break the trend, here comes Obscure - The Aftermath, sequel to a game I played earlier this year. This game has often been ridiculed and been made fun of, particularly because of its cheesy story and dialogue, but just as with the first game, it's a bit of a gem in the rough.

 The story picks up a few years after the first game. Shannon, Stan and Kenny return in playable form, although their experiences throughout the first game have changed them. Corey, Sven, Amy, Mel and Jun join the cast as fellow university students. A new black flower has sprout and all the cool teens are using it to get high and party, but for many, this trip might be their last. The story is pretty bland and dumb, and the dialogue borderlines on cringe-inducing, but it kinda works since it wants to be your generic slasher horror movie cast, so you've got your dumb teenager humor, dumb-sassy characters and every stereotype you're used to, for better or worse. The game has received a lot of flak, and I agree, if you take the cutscenes and dialogue out of context, the game looks ridiculous, in a bad way, but if you take them as part of a whole, they kinda fit. Kinda. It's not trying to be Evil Within 2 melodrama, it's trying to be a silly horror movie about dumb teens having to deal with monsters.

 The core gameplay is similar to the original game, but not quite the same. Just like before, when you play you take a couple of characters, unlike the first game, sometimes you can pick, sometimes the game decides for you. The entire game can be played in multiplayer if you want. Just as with the first game, each character(Well, except two) has a unique ability: Sven and Kenny are the muscle, so they can move heavy objects or turn tight valves. Stan returns as a master locksmith, being able to open any(Well, almost) lock. Corey is acrobatic, so he can jump and cling onto ledges. Amy can decipher codes and clues. Mel... Mel is a hacker, and gets the WORST puzzles in the game. You're given an array of letters, with quite a few filler letters, and you have to figure out which famous person's name you can spell. There are no hints, NOTHING, which is incredibly dumb. Let me save you the hassle, the three passwords you'll need are 'MOZART', 'FREUD' and 'EINSTEIN'. You're welcome. Shannon, tainted by her exposure to the spores on the first game, can interact with black spores and remove them and, lastly, there's Jun. She's an optional character that you only get to play a very brief while, if you manage to reach her before her health runs out, so she has no special ability.

 Maybe you noticed something... In the first game, abilities were more like perks, being able to tell if there was something left to find, a double attack, etc. And that's because anyone could die at any moment in the first game. Not so this time around, as every ability is required to progress. This means that if either character you are using dies it's game over. It's a change I'm not too fond of, not that that means nobody dies, au contraire, no playable character is safe from death... albeit a from a scripted one.

 The rest of the game plays pretty much like your standard  survival horror game: Explore environments, solve puzzles, kill monsters and manage your ammo and healing supplies. The way supplies work in this game is pretty weird, some supplies may randomly spawn or not, so you can't always rely on supplies when you retry. And retry you will, because the game is pretty dang stingy with savepoints, and you can only use each ONCE. The progression is pretty linear, and areas are relatively small, so if you die, hopefully, you won't lose much progress. This moderately sized environments make it so that if you realize you require a specific character's abilities, backtracking to the safe zone and swapping character doesn't become tedious. Each 'main' environment in the game hides 3 keys and 1 chest, find all four and you'll get yourself a fancy new weapon.

 I've read a few comments on the game being a bit hard, but you can manage just fine. Having the item menu, the one through which you heal, being in real time can be a bit tough, but you can deal with it. There are a few items that run on electricity, like the Stun-gun, which you can conveniently recharge at any electricity station, that works pretty well and will never run out of ammo. At first I would use the stun-gun and had the CPU ally attack with melee weapons, until I realized that a lot of the time my partner would just stare at thin air, slowly inching towards my target, but it turned out that they are pretty effective with the stun gun. Early in the game you also get a syringe that you can use on the monsters' remains to produce a healing tonic. During the last third of the game you are stripped from all your healing items and weapons, so don't get too stingy with them.

 While I don't think Obscure - The Aftermath is quite as good as the first game, it's still a neat Survival Horror game to play after you're done with you Resident Evils and Silent Hills. You can tell that it's a bit rough around its edges and some things can feel a bit janky, but as a whole it works quite well. The story can be quite bland, and characters quite cheesy, but the gameplay is pure horror, and fun to boot. The early game can be a bit tough as you figure out how best to manage your supplies, but once you find what works for you, you are good to go. All in all, the first game is better, but this one worth seeking out too.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #704: MediEvil II

 Medievil goes a-head with a sequel!

 Medievil was pretty darn good, so a sequel was inevitable. In a few words, MediEvil II is just ye olde 'more of the same', but as per usual, when 'the same' is already good, more ain't such a raw deal.

 The plot takes place 500 years after the first game, a Devil-thing-creature is trying to collect the pages of an evil sorcery book, and it just so happens that Dan Fortesque wakes up, alongside other undead, and sets out to stop the new baddie. The new plot is, to put it mildly, pretty bland. The first game had such an original premise, having Dan receiving undue honors after his death, so in stopping the big bad he slowly earned the respect of the other dead heroes that the new plot pales in comparison. The new cast of characters is pretty bland, the new love interest barely gets 2-3 lines of dialogue and we are supposed to believe that Dan feels anything for her. The latter third of the game is driven by a dumb time-travelling contrivance, it's pretty lame and made me lose any kind of interest I had in the plot. The script is still very humor-heavy, but I didn't find it funny.

 Gameplaywise it's pretty much identical to the first game, this being an action-adventure game in which you have to solve simple puzzles as you hack and slash your enemies to bits. Dan can equip a decently sized arsenal of weapons, including swords, an ax, a hammer, a gun, a crossbow and even a minigun. Movement in the game is pretty slippery, just like it used to be, and combat is as janky as ever, but it's pretty endearing nonetheless. X is your basic attack, while Square is your  special move, be it a spinning slash or shooting electricity from a cane. A new addition is being able to quickswap between two different weapons without having to enter your inventory, which is quite neat.

 The game offers a nice variety of new environments, heck, I'd say this game's stages were more appealing than the original's. There's this one standout level in which you have to traverse the city streets, avoiding policemen since you are breaking the curfew, while finding an entry card to a club. Only to find out that you don't look like the guy on the card, so now you have to find a beard... only to get told that you can't enter 'dressed like that'. That said, they added fall damage into the game, which is quite annoying. The game is slippery enough as it is, so missing jumps is bound to happen, and if you fall far enough, it might cost you an entire lifebar. Not cool. The last couple of levels were a bit annoying due to this, they involve a lot of climbing and a lot of moving platforms, where one wrong jump could cost you your precious health.

 One new addition to the game is being able to place Dan's head on top of a zombie hand, which you can then control to enter small crevices and holes. It adds a new dimension to puzzles, sometimes you might have to work by alternating between Dan's body and Dan's head, for instance, you might need to press levers as Dan's body in order to make a route for Dan's head, or maybe you need to place Dan's head somewhere his body can't fit, and then switch to the head in order to see the answer to the puzzle at hand.

 One of the best things about the previous game was collecting Chalices. By defeating every enemy in a stage you'd earn the right to collect the Chalice of Souls, provided you could find it, which would reward Dan with goodies upon completing the stage. Well, filling the Chalice has been made easier since you don't need to find every single enemy anymore, which is, arguably, better since it's a bit more lenient. Rewards are much better this time around too, since you're guaranteed a new weapon, the previous game had a few filler rewards, such as bags of money. The other major collectible are Life Bottles, which extend Dan's life bar. And boy, are they a necessity this time around! Health Fountains, the thingies that refill your life bar, no longer reset when revisiting old levels. That's right, you can possibly exhaust every restorative in the game, which could translate into an unwinnable game. LAME.

 MediEvil II is a good game, but barely an alright sequel. It has some neat additions, like the DanHand and the weapon quickswap, but also took some steps in the wrong direction, such as falling damage and depletable sources of healing. I really enjoyed most of the new levels, and I liked the variety, getting rewarded with new weapons every new level, provided you found the chalices, feels great and I found some of the new puzzles quite brilliant. That said, for as good as this game is, I think the first game is a stronger product, it was a bit more consistent in quality, it may not have had as many memorable levels as this one, but it didn't have falling damage that pretty much ruined a few levels for me. Plus, the story was much, much better and more engaging to boot.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #703: 64 Memories - Castlevania - Legacy of Darkness

 The madmen at Konami did it, they fixed Castlevania 64!

 Part I: The Flashback
 While Castlevania 64 was a rude awakening to an aged game I used to enjoy a lot when I was younger, Castlevania Legacy of Darkness, the updated rerelease remained a game I needed to play. And I'm happy to report that somehow Konami managed to fix a lot of the game's shortcomings.

 As far as memories go, I remember being vaguely interested in playing it, and I also remember seeing Cornell's beta art, back when Castlevania 64 was first announced, on a Club Nintendo Magazine, and I always wondered why that white-haired dude never made it in.

 Part II: The Review
Since the basic gameplay remains unchanged, I'll try to focus on what's different. Changes to the game are more than just a bunch of new characters, a lot of levels got completely redesigned. There's a new first level, a boat level, the previous first level got changed completely, all the Tower stages were remade from scratch and the Clock Tower starts off pretty similarly but differences start showing up as you go through it. All the new designs are much better than the originals, they are shorter and more streamlined, to the game's benefit. The few areas that haven't changed and Cornell visits, namely the Villa, the Garden and the Wall, when Cornell plays them, he does so in a completely different way from Reinhardt and Carrie. There are also new bosses, like Medusa and a Spider-queen. Cornell himself gets about two exclusive stages no other character visits.

 Cornell is the only character available at first, and he is pretty fun. He has a new storyline that takes place 8 years before the original game. His main attack is a projectile slash, while his secondary weapon are his claws. He's also the only character that has a use for the L button, turning into his Wolf form, which makes him stronger and sturdier, which lasts as long as you've got crystal points. That said, there's a pretty huge oversight: You can't turn off the Wolf form, so you should save it for bosses and pray that a cutscene will revert Cornell back into his human form before you run out of crystal energy. Cornell's quest skips the somewhat tedious Mandragora sidequest, but instead visits all the Tower stages and has two new Towers that are exclusive to him. A new character, Ortega, serves as his rival, and his pretty darn cool.

 Beating the game unlocks another new character, Henry. He fights with a gun and a sword, like Reinhardt, albeit he swings it with the other arm. Henry is very interesting in that he has 6 stages, half the amount the other characters, and a 7 in-game days time limit. His objective: To rescue 6 kids, one per area, before time runs out. Each kid represents an unlockable: Reinhardt, Carrie, Cornell's alternate costume(The one from his beta art!!!), Reinhardt's alternate costume(His original costume from Castlevania 64!), Carrie's alternate costume(the one from the original Castlevania 64) and the hard difficulty setting.

 Reinhardt and Carrie remain pretty much exactly as they were in the previous game, although Reinhardt's upgraded whips look different(A morningstar first and a light whip on the second upgrade) and they come with new default outfits. They have the same cutscenes and routes that they used to have, albeit they start on the new first level and feature the redesigned tower stages, which is a huge plus, and, at the same time, doesn't make the original game completely obsolete since now each cart offers a few COMPLETELY different levels, even if they share assets.

 There are a few new subtle changes that make the game much, much better. Playing the game with the Expansion pack one and picking Low resolution makes the framerate a bit smoother. There are still moments when the framerate will sink, but they are not as frequent as they used to be. The camera system has been completely revamped, and now you can turn it around, as well as pick from three different 'zoom' settings by using the directional pad. There's a new 'auto view' which can get pretty annoying, but you can just tap C-Up and go back into manual mode, letting you readjust the angle to your liking. It's still far from perfect, but death due to a garbage camera are much rarer. The redesigned levels, plus the new camera, plus the slightly better framerate made for a much more fun game. I had a ton of fan platforming around stages, having characters be so 'clingy' onto edges is more fun than it should.

 Targeting in the game, by holding R, doesn't work at all, so don't rely on it. Also, remember how the original game had these dumb gates that would only open depending on the time of the in-game day? They are back. As a matter of fact, one of Cornell's exclusive levels is built entirely around these gates. Enemies drop a ton of the sun-moon cards, so you won't have to run around in circles waiting for time to pass, but you'll still have to enter the menu every time you need to change the time of the day, and then wait as the clock gets fast-forwarded. It's easily the worst addition to the game. On the same note, Henry's quest is also victim to this, there's a coffin that teleports you to different levels depending on what time it is when you jump inside. This is explained nowhere, so I had to look online how and when I could access his three final stages.

 Well, I'm happy to report that Legacy of Darkness is really good. It's proof of how a few key fixes can change a game for the better. The two new characters are fun to use, both Henry and Cornell get decent projectiles and close-ranged attacks, so combat is never an issue. Platforming around Castlevania's levels is pretty darn fun, and the new camera makes it as comfortable as the engine allows. The redesigned levels are simpler, and more fun, and the game is much more generous with Save Crystals, so you'll never lose much progress if you die. I think the best thing I can say about this game is that it plays just like Castlevania 64 did in my nostalgia-tinted memories.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #702: Luigi's Mansion - Dark Moon

 Legend has it, you may even reach the dark side of the dark moon.

 With Luigi's Mansion 3 right around the corner, I felt it was appropriate to completely skip the first game and give the series a try with the second game, Luigi's Mansion - Dark Moon. Not your average Mario game that much is clear, there isn't even a jump button, no, this is a much slower-paced puzzle-adventure game that sees you take the role of Luigi and his trusty vacuum-cleaner-turned-ghost-hunting-device as you help Dr. E. Gadd capture all the ghosts gone rogue and find all the pieces of the Dark Moon.

 The game is divided into 5 Mansions/stages, each one being made up of up to 5 missions, a boss and a bonus mission. For whatever reason, the third mansion, the ice one, only has 3 missions instead of five. Each mission is made up of a main objective, but you're free to explore at your leisure, and you should, as finding money helps upgrade your tools and each mission has a hidden Boo, collect them all and you'll unlock the bonus missions. Having every mansion divided into separate objectives is a bit... questionable. After you fulfill your goal, E. Gadd teleports you back into his lab, only to send you back into the entrance of the mansion for the next objective. It kills the pacing, and sometimes the mansion changes very little between objectives, not that it matters since re-exploring the entire thing again for each mission is encouraged if you're looking for money, hidden gems or the hidden boo. It's not long before it starts getting a bit tedious

 Luigi, ghost-hunter extraordinaire, will equip three main tools throughout the course of the first mansion: The ever-useful Poltergust, a Vacuum-Cleaner that is used to grapple ghosts into submission, clean mounds of dust/ice, suck in objects in order to carry them, stick Luigi on-to a rope, or even shoot-out certain solid objects. There really is no shortage of stuff to do with it, you'll find yourself sucking-in fake walls and curtains, carrying flaming logs in order to melt ice or burn webs, turn valves or even use it to rappel through ropes. Luigi's second tool is his flashlight, necessary in order to stun ghosts before you can start vacuuming them as well as interacting with a few objects in order to activate them. Luigi's last tool is his dark-light flashlight, this one is used to reveal invisible objects and reveal the ever-elusive Boos in order to capture them.

 Each Mansion has 13 different jewels to collect, which are pretty much useless, a ton of money, which unlocks upgrades for your dark-light flashlight and vacuum cleaner, but it's not too soon before you get all the upgrades and money becomes useless as well. It's a shame that collectibles feel so superfluous, because this is mainly a puzzle game, but after you've maxed all your upgrades there's very little incentive to do so besides finding the hidden Boos in order to unlock the bonus missions. Plus, since finding Boos, gems and money usually means aimlessly backtracking.... it becomes quite boring early on. Luckily, your main objectives keep it fresh, so it doesn't feel like unnecessary backtracking.

 Controls in the game can take a bit getting used to, heck, even 6 hours in I was sometimes mixing up my vacuuming controls with the flashlight, remember, in order to aim up you need to hold X, and to aim downward you need to hold B, so it's easy to get confused at first. But by the end of the game, it'll feel pretty natural. That said, the game has mandatory gyroscopic controls whenever you have to walk on rails and narrow boards, which is 100% idiotic. There are a few first-person segments that also have gyroscopic controls in addition to the analogue stick, so during the fourth mansion's boss you might find that your aiming can't keep still... it's because the 3DS itself also moves the camera. Dumb.

 One last gripe with the game is how much E. Gadd calls Luigi mid-mission. Luckily, you can skip them by pressing the Start Button, but it doesn't matter, since every single time he calls it'll root you on the spot until you touch the touchscreen and then, and only then, you can press the start button in order to skip him telling you the obvious. I had hoped that when replaying a level he wouldn't call you, but he does anyways. Luigi's Mansion is already a slow-paced game, and I can deal with that, but these annoying calls really kill the mood.

 Lastly, the game has a simple multiplayer mode, which you can play by yourself, called Scarescrapper. You can set the number of floors, you can unlock 'Infinite' as well, as well as different goals such as capturing every ghost or simply sprinting to the exit. These floors are randomly generated which is actually rather neat.

 Luigi's Mansion - Dark Moon is a bit of a mixed bag. I think the basic gameplay is pretty dope, exploring the Mansions is fun, the puzzles are fun to solve and the game is quite rewarding... at first. Sadly, it's also very repetitive, and I'm not quite fond of having to re-explore the entire mansion if I want to find the collectibles, nor of having to deal with E. Gadd's calls. Regardless, Luigi's Mansion 2 is a fun time, but it's probably better if played in bursts.
 7.0 out of 10