Review #797: Marvel VS Capcom - Clash of Super Heroes

 The dream ain't dead.

 As per usual, if you want a straight up port of Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes look elsewhere, because the PS1 version is 1 vs 1 fighter that's missing a few animation frames. With that out of the way, what can I say about MvC 1? I loved this game, and I loved this version of the game, so much so that I was actually quite put off by Marvel VS Capcom 2 on the PS2. Having so many characters on the screen at the same time as well as tagging in and out gave it a feeling of floatiness and combat felt like it lacked proper gravity, so... I kinda preferred this version of the game over the sequel. That said, after learning to enjoy Street Fighter VS X-Men I thought that I just wouldn't like this game as much. I was wrong.

 Alright, so as far as modes go, it's only got Arcade Ladder, Training, VS Player and the returning Crossover mode, in which you fight proper tag team matches, albeit in mirror mode(Both players or player/CPU must use the same pair of characters). And the roster is down from 17, like SF VS X-men and SF VS MSH, to 15. But, and this is a huge but, Capcom decided to stop being lazy and brought us completely new sprites: Megaman/Roll, Venom, Captain Commando, Jin Saotome and Strider Hiryu. Iron-man is back in the form of War Machine, and when I was a kid and watched the 90's Iron-Man TV-Show War Machine was my favorite, so that's a huge plus even if he is just a palette swap, and Morrigan's legendarily recycled sprite joins the fray for the first time ever on a VS game. Ken and Akuma are gone, and while I'm sad my boy Ken is out, but Ryu is now Complete Form Ryu, a Ryu that can use the Super Gauge to change the properties of his moves to match Ken or Akuma. Oh and Apocalypse? Scratch that, Onslaught is the new final boss and he has two forms! Rounding up the cast are the returning Chun Li, Zangief, Spider-man, Captain America, Hulk, Gambit and Wolverine. All in all... I absolutely love this cast of characters, it's a mix of obscure and fan favorites. The only character I'd remove would be Zangief, since I think him and his style don't match the rest of the characters very well. On another note, I think the game has too much blue. A lot of backgrounds have a lot of blue hues, and we've got Megaman, Captain Commando, Captain America, Venom and War Machine rocking them blue hues, and Chun-Li and Spider-man also have a ton of blue, not to mention that Hyper Combo backgrounds are.... blue. There might be too much blue.

 Remember how SF VS MSH introduced palette swap alternate characters? We've got more of them, and they are even better. Roll is pretty much her own unique sprite, even if she shares a lot of moves with Megaman, Red Venom is a faster and weaker Venom, Orange Hulk plays like Hulk did in MSH, Gold War Machine trades beams for missiles and the ability to block for Super Armor, Lillith/Morrigan is a Morrigan that fights like Lillith and Shadow Lady is an alternate take on Chun-Li. Every alternate character is fun by its own right, which is more than I can say about SF VS MSH. This Playstation version also adds a badass zoom effect when throwing and landing Aerial Raves, which is unique to this version.

 By now you should understand how these VS games play, although that will change by the time of Marvel VS Capcom 2. But we ain't there yet, so we've still got 6 attack buttons, 3 kicks and 3 punches. The partner system has changed a bit. You can select "Partner Hero", which means selecting another playable character as your ally, and this lets you use the Variable Counter(Which makes them jump in for an attack to counter a blocked enemy attack), the Variable Combination, which mixes your super with their super(And if you defeat an enemy with it you'll get an amazing splash screen with a hybrid hyper combo name) and, new to the series, Variable Cross, in which you summon a copy of the enemy character to fight alongside you, sandwiching the enemy between you and them. But, you could also opt for "Special Partner" and choose from a larger pool of characters that can only be used as assist characters, such as Thor or Colossus, and they too have their unique mechanics: Assist Attack, in which they jump on screen and perform their attack, Assist Counter, which is pretty much the Variable Counter, and the Assist Hyper, in which you call them in and they repeat their attack various times.

 Finally, Capcom got the hang of what the PS1 could actually do, and I'm happy to report that slowdown is pretty much gone, save for a few hyper moves, and it seems to only appear if you actuall hit the enemy. It's incredibly satisfying to finally get to use Iron-Man's(Or War Machine's in this case) repulsor blast without tanking the framerate into the single digits. Capcom also added a lot of shortcuts, so now you can press start after a fight for an instant rematch, skipping load times, or press start during Arcade mode to skip the after fight taunt and opponent ladder overview to skip even more loading screens. The game as a whole also feels better than previous VS games on the system, the controls are more responsive than before, and the game feels much better. For example, getting Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku attack in SF VS MSH required an ungodly amount of mashing, while in this game is much easier to pull off.

 I had fallen in love so much for SF VS X-Men that I didn't think I'd like this game, which was pretty much my childhood and I'm pretty sure the first PS1 game I ever played on my PS2, as much. But nope, Marvel VS Capcom is more than just a roster remix, and not just because of the new sprites, but because the game feels better to play as a whole. It's also incredibly hype, with exciting music and a fantastic announcer, 'Let's go Crazy' indeed! So... yeah, Marvel VS Capcom is the best one of the bunch when it comes to PS1 ports of these games. It's not an accurate representation of the Arcade Original, but I don't care, I can appreciate these ports for what they are and I love the fact that these 1 on 1 versions of the game exist.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #796: Blaster Master - Blasting Again

 It's quite a blast.

 Would you believe me if I told you that I hated Blaster Master: Blasting Again at first? Whenever I buy retro games, since most of the time I have to purchase them used, I give them a try to make sure they work, and when I first put Blaster Master's disc in... I hated it. I got out of Sophia, the vehicle you drive, and started shooting at flying enemies and it was so sloppy. I hated it. But finally, it was time to sit down and give it the old college try, and I completely changed my mind on it: It's really good.

 Blasting Again is a sequel to the NES originals, although you play as the son of the hero of the first game. The game's plot does this weird thing where it completely ignores the Japanese version and makes the USA localization canon, as well as bringing in a character from a novel into the fray. Our hero's name is Roddy, and he drives the Sophia-J7, a miniature tank like vehicle, in order to defeat aliens, and he gets back up from his sister, Elfie, as his navigator. The story is pretty bland, and the voice acting is laughable, but it gets the job done. As for the game, it's an action/adventure hybrid that lasts about 8-9 hours, depending on how thorough you are with your exploration. The world of Blaster Master BA is divided into 5 sections, a Hub("Ground") and four different zones: Lava, Plant, Water and Cave, and before it's over and done with, you'll visit every zone twice and fight their bosses.

 While combat is an important part of the game, and I'll get to it eventually, exploration is equally important, and it does have a few light Metroidvania elements. For you see, most of the bosses you defeat will give you a new ability. The first boss lets you switch between four different sub weapons, which is pretty neat, but the next boss gives you the ability to climb on very specific surfaces, and it's probably the least used ability in the game. And then you get the submarine ability, and while the game won't tell you what to do then, it's quite obvious that you should revisit the Water land. And you could simply walk into the new areas you can reach with your fancy new ability.... or you could attempt to explore the areas you couldn't on your first time through. It's not mandatory to back track, but you can get nice permanent boosts to your subweapon ammo capacity, so it pays to backtrack when you get new abilities. Although you might just as well wait until you get the Hover ability, since by then 90% of game opens up to you and you'll limit aimless backtracking to see if your new ability lets you reach unexplored areas. Thankfully the automap is pretty decent, so it's easy to tell if there are exits you couldn't reach before.

 Platforming in the game is iffy. When it comes to driving Sophia, for starters, you can't rotate the camera, so you have to hope that the angle the autocamara reaches is good. Although a quite a few times I would've loved to be able to pull the camera downward to see what was below me. Regardless, even once you get used to the camera, there's another issue... Sophia is a bit slippery. A few platforming sections can become a bit tedious since you have to be careful that Sophia doesn't slide off the platform once you land. If you're playing with the analog stick, I suggest you turn it off and do your jumping with the directional pad. If you press select and get out of Sophia, you'll discover the Roddy has better jumping capabilities... but he barely gets platforming challenges! Oh, and he can rotate the camera in 90 degree increments which at least is something. Regardless, Roddy is frailer and weaker so you'll probably want to limit your exposure to the elements only when you reach doors that only Roddy can go through, and these sections tend to have an unfavorably zoomed in camera, so... it takes a bit of getting used to.

 Combat is a bit more fun than it should. Square is your basic shot that you can rapid fire, L1 and R1 are funky side jumps and R2-L2 switch between Sophia's sub-weapons, changing how she looks in the process. Bosses are probably the game at its best, it was fun side jumping around while holding down the square button and trying to sneak in sub-weapon attacks. Roddy's sections are not as fun, he has no sub weapons, but rather, a weapon upgrade system that increases its strength the more pick-ups you collect, while randomly losing power when you get hit, requiring you to find another pick up. In an hilarious twist, the final upgrade is a short-range flamethrower that's not nearly as useful as the longer range rank that came before. Thankfully, it's incredibly easy to lose by getting hit once or twice. He also has infinite bombs and a napalm-invincibility move that recharges over time. Roddy's stages are a bit duller than the more open areas you explore and fight in as Sophia, because the zoomed in camera angles don't really help you when you fight enemies on tight corridors and concealed spaces.

 Once you get used to the game's flaws, it's actually quite fun. Exploring every area becomes very entertaining, as you search for permanent power ups and defeat enemies on your way. I'd say Sophia's section play better not only because the fighting flows better, but because the puzzle elements are kept to a minimum, while Roddy's puzzles can get a bit too labyrinthine for my tastes. That said, the final level is a chore that kills the game pacing, for you see, it's the largest area in the game that feels more like a maze than anything and.... has you fighting every boss again. I mean... what a poor way to end the game, the most boring level and a repetitive filler boss-rush.

 Blaster Master: Blasting Again is really good despite its various flaws. Thankfully it's easy to get used to the poor camera and slippery platforming in order to enjoy the game. While Roddy's sections are not as good as the on-vehicle segments, they don't last nearly as long, so in a way, they are a welcome change of pace that prevent the brunt of the game from getting old. Overall, I think it's a few steps away from being a hidden gem, but it's not a bad purchase for PS1 aficionados.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #795: Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time(Gameboy Advance)

 Maybe it's not worth unearthing from the sands of time.

 Two years ago I decided to give most of the Prince of Persia saga another whirl, but I skipped two games: The strategy game on the DS, because it made no sense for the license, and the Gameboy Advance port of Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time since I wasn't so focused on the GBA at the time. Since the Sands of Time are not real and I can't go back in time, I'll absolve my sins past by playing it here and now. And I kinda wish I hadn't.

 The game follows the same plot from the original game, with the Prince accidentally unleashing the Sands of Time and turning everyone into a Sand Demon except himself, the princess Farah and the mandatory evil Vizier. The plot is told through stills from the cutscenes of the console game and it does a rather subpar job at conveying the story. As for the game itself, it's a 2-D platform/adventure game with sloppy 3-D models for the characters. It looks alright and it plays well sometimes.

 The game is slightly Metroidvania-ish in design, with the Prince earning new moves every time he defeats the recycled Griffin boss, which at least gets new patterns each time, even if it uses the same 3-D model. Heck, you'll notice as you go along that there are a lot of doors that you just can't reach or open at the time being, but you'll get the necessary abilities much later in the game. You could try to backtrack, but a few roads get blocked off so it's not really worth it, particularly because once you defeat the Evil Vizier... shenanigans happen and now you are back at the beginning of the game. You gain access to a cave that provides easy access to all five main areas of the game so that you can backtrack for goodies: Limited, consumable items and medals that open up roads to fight more enemies. The game has 75 'big' Sand Demons, what makes them important is that killing these fills a hidden experience bar that lets you level up, making you stronger and sturdier. To be honest, once said shenanigans happen you don't need to backtrack, you can face the final boss right there and then if you so wish for. And, to be honest, the true final boss might be one of the easiest bosses in the game. All that said, if you don't have a Gamecube and the Gamecube copy of the game you won't be able to enter through 3 "Gamecube gates", locking you out of content.

 A is your jump button, B is your slash, R is used to absorb projectiles, once you get the ability, and L uses the Sands of Time. Rewinding with the sands of time is a bit janky, it never feels just quite right, you don't get much Sand storage capacity and even if you did, you can't go very far back. You can also find the "Slow down ring" and the "freeze ring", which you must equip on the menu, and they change how the Sands work, and it's pretty much self-explanatory how each ring works. You can restore sand by killing weak enemies or absorbing the bigger enemies with the Time Dagger, and you pretty much have to unless you want them getting up again. A few sections actually require you to spend Sands to rebuild broken structures, but if you don't have enough sands.... you'll waste all your sands. Heck, a couple of times I got into an area that required me to rebuild something when I had no sands left, and I was more than 3 areas away from respawning enemies I could fight for sands so I was FORCED to use limited, consumable items to restore my sands in order to progress, lest I wanted to aimlessly backtrack hoping I'd come across any enemy, which is horrible game design.

 New to the series, you actually get to play as Farah. It's only during the second part of the game, and you'll have to constantly swap between her and the Prince in order to progress, and it was actually rather fun. As you defeat the Griffin boss you'll eventually get the wall jump, which is a bit finicky even after you understand how to get it to come out consistently, and the wallrun, which is also kinda sloppy. Platforming challenges that involve any of these are a bit on the annoying side, and the game can starve you for Save Spots or temporary checkpoints, which really, really sucks on a handheld game. The game also includes a few leaps of faith which weren't very fun, particularly because there's fall damage, and if the fall is too great, even instant death. And this was something that reaaaaaaaaaally grinded my gears, the falling threshold for damage and death is VERY inconsistent. Sometimes falls that shouldn't have hurt actually hurt me, and falls that looked very short killed me. Heck, I'm sure that a few times I lost health just from double jumping. Couple this with save point starvation and a rewind mechanic that doesn't work very well and you get a very annoying game. That said, the platforming can be rather fun when it works well, and it does a good job at adapting the parkour platforming that made the console game so famous: You'll be clinging onto ledges, climbing up and down columns, vaulting on rods and what not, while avoiding saws and moving blades galore, and, when the game's flaws don't get in the way... it's actually rather fun.

 Combat is passable at first, but once you get to the bigger enemies it turns into a waiting game. Lance enemy? Wait for it to perform its three hit combo FOUR times then jump so that it throws the spear up and THEN you can attack it. Jumping lance enemy? Avoid the jumps by running below it, and once it gets tired jump up to make it throw his spear up. The whip enemy? Slowly hit their whip when they attack until all they've got left is a 3-chain whip and then, and only then, do they become vulnerable. Hammer enemy? Wait for it to get tired from spinning and then you can hurt it. It's not tough, it's not fun, but rather boring, lots and lots of waiting, and you'll fight them multiple times, but the strategy never changes and you can never do anything else but follow the same waiting pattern. Bosses are a bit more involved, and a few were quite tough, but since they were bosses I didn't really mind the waiting part of the battle itself. It is a boss, it is an event, it is fine. That said, be it basic enemies or bosses, the toughest enemy you'll fight are the overly generous hitboxes the enemies have. Just touching them hurts you, and sometimes it's hard to get in range for your attacks without touching their hitbox. The fight against the Vizier isn't hard, avoiding his projectiles isn't hard, but I kept getting hit because I kept accidentally touching him, it's really dumb.

 And lastly, there are three sections in which you must turn invisible in order to go through seemingly sentient doors that can see you. The first one is alright, but the next two? Boy, they are easily the worst parts in the game, it's almost impossible to see the Prince, at least on the Gameboy SP, and you are expected to dodge blades and saws WHILE correctly jumping on top of platforms and while under a friggin' time limit before the invisibility spell wears off. Man, I hated those parts. And did I mention that the game soft locked once? There's an enemy that hugs you if it catches you, and somehow I hit it as it grabbed me or something, so the Prince got stuck in the hug animation while the enemy sat on its place, slashing at the air. I had no choice but to reset, losing a lot of progress. LAME.

 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for Gameboy Advance is very rough. At time it seems like it manages to adapt what worked so well on the Console original, but for every good bit in the game we get tons of design issues that keep it from reaching its potential. Combat is boring and wonky, and platforming is janky and inconsistent. It's not a good game, and for the most part, it's not a fun time.
 3.5 out of 10

Review #794: Contra Rogue Corps

 Contra: The looter shooter.

 A lot has been said about Contra: Rogue Corps, some true, some false, some good, some bad, but I'll just say that it's not bad because it's not really Contra, but rather, it's bad because it's bad. I'm fairly open to change, I like both Devil May Cry and DmC, I enjoyed Dungeon Siege 3 even though it's very unlike the first two Dungeon Siege games, which happen to be some of my favorite RPGs ever, and, heck, I like Silent Hill post Silent Hill 4, so believe me when I say that I wouldn't condemn a game just for being different from what came before.

 The first thing you need to understand is that this is a dungeon crawler but with twin-stick mechanics, which makes it a looter shooter. This is eerily similar to Silent Hill: Book of Memories, when Konami tried to make a dungeon crawler out of a licensed that didn't fit the genre, and it fails just as much. The game is made up of 7 ranks, a few more if you download the free patches, each one made up of about 6 missions. Which sounds like plenty, but a lot of the maps get repeated, although on higher ranks it means meatier enemies and, sometimes, a few alternate, tougher enemies to fight. There is offline co-op, but there are only 4 missions you can play in that mode, and they require a small fee to attempt, which, y'know, lame. Oh, and by the by, you can't pause the game. Even if you're playing offline, the pause menu is a lie, enemies will still harm you and the time counter will still tick, so once you start a mission you are in it for the long haul. And, on what can only be considered a bad taste joke, the Switch version looks very, very blurry. This is easily one of the worst looking games on the system, and even the PS4 version looks pretty bad, although at least not blurry. At least it keeps a steady 30 fps, I guess.

 Left stick moves, right stick aims, ZR shoots, ZL dodges/attacks and A jumps, and that's pretty much all you need to know. The dodge is more like an offensive dodge? It hurts anything in its path, and you're invincible while you use it. And you'll need to use it a lot in order to get away from swarms of enemies or from more elite mooks that will keep you on your toes. Your weapon loadout is made up of two different guns, and you'll need to swap between them because, yes, they overheat. Overheat is a dumb mechanic that makes it so that you can't use your weapon all the time, because.... reasons? There's already an affinity mechanic in place(Fire, Poison, Electricity) that makes some enemies take more or less damage from different elements, so I really don't understand why they need to force you to swap weapons. Some weapons are awful when fighting enemies on higher/lower altitudes, so it's not like it's easy to get a single weapon to cover all your needs. Heck, some levels have 'shooting gallery' sections, in which it turns into a pseudo third person shooter in which you can only move from left to right, as well as some small degree of freedom on the Y axis, and some weapons just won't reach far enough. If you happen to equip two weapons that don't reach far enough the game will warn you that, hey, those two weapons you like? Yeah, neither of them work in that mode. Fun. Honestly, the Overheating mechanic makes no sense in the game other than to annoy the player or to create some fake sense of depth.

 I called the game a looter shooter, because after every mission you'll amass a ton of 'body parts', that can be used to alter any of the four playable characters, and different weapons, weapon blueprints and weapon mods, and yes, every body part, weapon and mod come in rarities: common, rare and epic varieties, because, as said before, this is a looter shooter. Body parts come in four: Brain, Eyes, Skeleton and Organs, they don't change how characters look, but it grants you passive bonuses, like Extra lives, extra shield, extra bombs, longer dashes, stronger dashes when your weapons overheat, etc. Weapon Mods have two distinct functions: Enhance your equipped weapons or as parts to create weapons from their blueprints. Sometimes it's a bit painful having to choose between creating weapons or using them as a resource, but do you really want to grind for parts in this game? Nay! You want to spend the least amount of time possible playing this junk!

 Alright, so onto the positives, I really liked the four heroes. They are all freaks: A Gentleman alien, a dudebro with a drill-arm, a female mercenary with an alien grafted on her abdomen and a panda with the brain of a scientist. As far as gameplay goes, the only thing that sets them apart, besides looks, is their unique R ability, but, hey, they are a weird bunch and I love it. I also enjoyed the comic-book cutscenes, very low budget to be sure, but the art is gorgeous. Also, there's a lot of variety when it comes to weapons.... although, honestly, I hated most of them. I tried out a whole lot of them, but they were either two weird to use, or too useless. For example, the Chainsaw and the 'swords' look cool, but they slow you down to a crawl and you need to get too close for comfort. The incendiary gun shoots in bursts which made it rather useless when it came to swarms. I stuck with the Gatling Gun and the Fire Gun for the rest of the game, because they worked well most of the time. Also, I think it's rather lame how the gun-model your character holds doesn't change for whatever weapon you equip, the chainsaw is just a giant chainsaw that comes out of your gun, and the shotgun is just a shotgun spread that comes out of your rifle-looking weapon. Lame.

 Alright, Konami, you tried it with Castlevania and it kinda worked. Then you tried it with Silent Hill and most decidedly it didn't work. I'm pretty sure you tried it with Metal Gear Solid V and it didn't work. Now it was Contra's turn to get turned into a loot-based dungeon crawler, and guess what, it didn't work. Again. Stop trying to turn everything into a dungeon crawler or a pachinko machine and just make the games people want to play, dammit!
 3.0 out of 10

Review #793: Carebears Care Quest

 Baby's first game.

 I used to watch the Carebears when I was a wee lad, which is why I decided to get CareBears: Care Quest. Obviously, it's pretty bad, even by licensed game standards. It's a 12 mini-game collection that has you playing as a different bear on each.... although most mini games share mechanics in one way or another.

 Most mini games come in two varieties: Flying and walking, with a couple of outliers. The game is clearly made on the cheap, as there are very few assets and animations are very minimalistic. The first game is a memory matching mini game that, I kid you not, starts with four options, very slowly adding new pairs. There's a silly hide and seek mini game in which bears keep popping their heads, and they even reuse hiding spots. There are like six similar flying games in which you must drop things below: Hearts on top of Bears, Rainbows to make trampolines for Starbuddies, Sleeping powder on Bears, Lucky Clovers to make bears jump and, lastly on in which you actually shoot laughing beams horizontally. In this latter one, there's a funny bug on the last level: next to the rightmost elevation there's an opening on the floor on which you can go through.... and get stuck on the environment. There's a Volleyball mini game in which you only need to walk towards the ball, a platformer in which you avoid water droplets, a game in which you must collect the right present for the right Star Buddy... and when successfully delivering a gift the most annoying maraca sound plays and a skater platfomer which happens to be the only game that uses both A and B button, since the other games at most use only the A button. Lastly, there's another gift-giving game, the 12th minigame, in which bears tell you what they want and you have to grab it as it falls. I saved this one for last because it's so poorly made that it's entirely based on luck and sometimes the right gift won't pop in time, and there's nothing you can do about it.

 CareBears: Care Quest is broken at its worst and incredibly boring and its best. Kids will hate this game, fans will hate this game and people who are in it for the nostalgia, like me, will also hate it. Absolutely no redeeming qualities.
 1.5 out of 10

Review #792: Open Season

 If only it played as good as it looks.

 I'm sure I'm not the only one that when asked about gorgeous 2-D sprites usually thinks about Capcom, Konami and SNK, thanks to their beautiful Arcade and Console games. But if I've learned something playing through so many licensed garbage on the Gameboy Advance... is that Ubisoft were on point when it came to 2-D sprites, Open Season is yet another beautiful licensed game from them. Since I'm growing tired of CIMA, and my girlfriend's got the Switch, I decided to play something else on a handheld, and thus I came around this little platform game.

 Usually, this is the part where I say that I never watched the movie or show so I don't know if it's faithful to the source material, however, when playing this game I realized something.... I saw this movie. I don't know how or when, since this isn't and wasn't the type of movie I like, but I know I saw it, and thus, I can tell you that it does follow the plot of the movie, and does an acceptable job at conveying its main arc. The game is made up of about 8 stages, an introduction stage, 6 main levels and a final battle against the hunter Shaw. Hilariously, there's no normal difficulty, it's either Easy or Hard.

 Boog, our main hero, a bear, can jump, roll and hit enemies with his teddy bear-sack. As you clear stages you'll gain the ability to stock up on living ammo: Beavers, Ducks, Skunks, Rabbits and Squirrel, each one having their own travel arc as well as an exclusive melee attack with Up + B. There's no need for them, but they sure make some boss battles much, much easier. And each stage ends with a boss, so it's not a bad idea to see how you fare against them with your furry pals. Clearing levels also rewards Boog with either an extra heart or an extension to his shout ability, which refills as you defeat enemies, and scares hunters, letting you enter a hilarious pseudo-bullet time. Each stage also has about 20 candy bars to collect, which can be used to buy some permanent upgrades to your ammo .

 Sadly, while the game is beautiful, it's also very boring. Stages are very forgettable and not very fun to explore. And that's the game's biggest problem: It's boring. All that said, I think that children and fans of the movie might get a kick out of it.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #791: Rising Zan - The Samurai Gunman

 Johnny no more.

 Before Dante we had John--I mean Zan. Rising Zan - The Samurai Gunman is a pretty interesting action hack-and-slash game for the PS1 that doesn't get even half the recognition it deserves.

 The plot is as ridiculous as it gets. Johnny was your every-day Sheriff until he got defeated and scarred by Samurai, so he went to Zipang where he learned the way of the Samurai, so now he returns, rechristened as Zan, to defeat the evil Ninja and Samurai that are invading the wild west. The story doesn't take itself seriously, and neither does Zan, who regularly calls himself the ULTRA SUPER SEXY HERO, ZAN. I mean, I'm not sure if I should praise or lambast the premise itself of a Samurai Gunman. Actually, I love it. The game is made up of 9 stages, and each stage has its own colorful boss to defeat. I also really liked the presentation, there's a lot of surprisingly decent voice acting as well as a original intro theme song, 'Johnny No More' which is all kinds of cheesy amazement.

 Zan can jump as well as hover by double tapping the jump button, attack with his sword with X, use his gun with Square, enter Hustle Mode(Super speed) with triangle, sidestep with L2/R2 and block/deflect with R1. The controls work well enough, and the combat itself is easy to understand. Most bosses and enemies have tells that sign you when you need to either sidestep or try to block. Besides his standard 3 hit combo, Zan also has access to multiple energy-consuming super moves by imputing directions on the Dpad and pressing the Slash button. Energy refills over time, so just spam those super moves like there's no tomorrow. Hustle Time uses the Hero Gauge, which fills as you save innocents and defeat enemies, I liked to save it up for bosses. You can also double tap Up and press the gun button to rapid-fire your gun.

 While combat is rather fun, the one big setback is the camera/lock on system. You have to hold L1 to reposition the camera behind you, or tap L1 to toggle a very wonky targetting system that sometimes tracks the enemies and other times it doesn't. It's weird. Having to depend on holding L1 during fights to see what's ahead of you is very cumbersome as well. Mind you, you can work around the camera and learn to tolerate it, but it can be quite a pain. A gimmick I didn't really like are the many "PRESS ALL BUTTONS" segments. Every stage has two of them, one mid stage and another one to finish off the boss. The former are the most annoying, since failing this means you lose a bit of health, and the mashing it requires is too high. Not a fan.

 On a technical level, the game is punching above its weight, so there's a lot of slowdown. It's not unplayable, but it's there. The Saving System is fairly unorthodox, you can only save after you lose. I lost all my progress this way, and then, after I was getting close to where I was.... the game froze. Regardless, I liked the game so much I didn't really care. Speaking of this, if you die, that's it, back to the start of the level. You can find rare precious extra lives, and you should try to amass them, because the game does have a very noticeable but fair difficulty curve. The pace at which it gets harder is quite reasonable, and level 8 will probably cost you a few extra lives. Level 9 is a bit of a boss gauntlet, but if you could finish level 8, you can finish level 9. The final boss is weak to your puny bullets, so don't be ashamed to rely on Devil May Cry 2 tactics. Dying and restarting the level forfeits said extra lives, and the save system makes sure you can't store them.... so be try to play your best until the end. Beating the game unlocks harder difficulty settings, and you can even unlock an alternate character. She's not too different from Zan, but still.

 I know people consider Devil May Cry the father of character-based action games, but I say to hell with that, Rising Zan is the true father of the genre. Or at least its grandfather. But I digress, the game is good, like really good. The camera is awful and the button mashing segments I could do without, but those few sour spots can't outshine how well the rest of the game plays and how much care went into making a very over-the-top, zany action game on a 32-bit console. And this game deserves a belated recognition, because few games did what this one did as WELL as it did nor have they aged as well. Johnny no more? No, Johnny for ever.

 8.0 out of 10