Review #801: Call of Duty Black Ops - Declassified

 There's a reason this game got declassified.

 I'm not a Call of Duty, I'm really not into the whole 'realistic military shooter' genre, as I find it quite dull. But maaaan, Black Ops was something else, it offered so many neat extras, like the fantastic zombies mode and the top-down shooter secret mini-game, it felt like an altogether fun game. And color me surprised, the campaign wound up being so interesting thanks to the plot twist! It wasn't your average military shooter, and that's why it was so good. Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified is a spin-off set between Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2, exclusive for the VITA, by the creators of Resistance Burning Skies, which wound up being much better than reviews led me to believe...sadly, this is not the case.

 The game's story mode is not an story mode, but a mode called 'Operations', being made up of 11 6-minute missions. Since this is a handheld game, bite-sized missions was probably the right idea, but the execution is not, as it ends up feeling very disjointed. Basically, you'll play as either Frank Woods or Alex Mason, the final mission being played as an undisclosed agent, and every mission is pretty much "This is why Alex/Frank is so awesome". I think the correct approach would've been a proper story campaign, although divided into 6-minute chunks. Then there's Time Trial, in which you get about 6 missions of running around shooting at dull cardboard cutouts. The last Single Player offering is Hostiles, which is an endless wave survivor mode which isn't half bad. That said, when it's all said and done, you're looking at about 3 hours worth of Single player content, which just doesn't cut the mustard. Hostiles does have some longevity, but it's not random enough and you can't even select your initial load out, and while Operations is made in a way to be replayed to get better times... why would you? There are no rewards. The game used to have Multiplayer, but it's pretty much dead.

 The basic gameplay is pretty good, they managed to capture how CoD feels, you've got your 2 weapon maximum, your iron sights to aim, regenerating health, etc. Melee and grenades are relegated to the touch screen, which works pretty decently. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Sprinting is automatic by default, but you can change it to pressing down on the DPad, which works really well due to the analogs placement, that said, I think it's better to turn it off because movement feels very slippery as it is.

 Alright, so while the basic gameplay nailed how CoD works... the rest of the game didn't. The AI is relentless, as soon as you kill any CPU, all of them will automatically know where you are, and they are incredibly aggressive, they'll empty their entire clips onto the walls you are hiding behind just because. They don't attempt to flank you or find you, except in hostiles mode, they'll just shoot and shoot and shoot. Sometimes they'll crouch behind cover and.... start shooting against the wall that's right in front of them trying to... reach you? They are dumb, but deadly. This also means that most missions in Operations Mode will play out exactly the same because the CPUs will always be more or less on the same exact places, trying to empty their clips on you or your cover. In Hostiles the enemy is actively trying to find you, so they behave much better there.

 Black Ops on Vita is not terrible, but it's very forgettable. There's not enough Single Player content for someone playing on the go, and what little content there isn't particularly good. Considering that they managed to capture the feeling of CoD, ignoring the terrible AI, maybe the game fared better in Multiplayer, but considering that's no longer a selling point.... the game just isn't up to snuff, which is kinda pathetic considering how decent the DS CoD games were, at least the one played.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #800: Trials of Mana(Playstation 4)

 Glory of Mana.

 This year, and on the very same month, Square decided to remake another of my favorite JRPGs of all time, Trials of Mana. And just as with Final Fantasy VII Remake, they promised a remake... and in this case, that's exactly what they delivered, to the point that this feels like a very 90's game made in 2020, the amount of care and love that went into translating everything into 3D is remarkable, dungeons, maps and animations are extremely faithful, so while the layouts are different, they still feel the same. The first few chapters of FFVII Remake had me smiling all the time since they were what I wanted, a remake that captured the original game's feeling, but that only lasted for so long. In this case? It kept me smiling the whole way through.

 Just like before, the story is set-up in a way that you pick three characters between a total of six, the first character you pick being the hero of Mana. There are three main routes depending on which character you chose as the hero: Angela/Duran, Kevin/Charlotte and Riesz/Hawkeye, and they mostly change the final dungeon and boss, although a few events play out differently as well. That said, there are various small tweaks to a few scenes depending on which characters are in the party, so there are quite a few different dialogue variations. All in all, differences are quite minimal for the most part, but it's still a neat addition. On the other hand... this was a SNES RPG, so characters are rather flat, and that hasn't changed, although a few steps were taken to make them a bit more endearing. Now you can play every party member's prologue instead of the main character, and a ton of different post-battle voice lines referencing current events were added for every character, as well as small dialogue exchanges every now and then while exploring. Heck, every time you enter a town your party disbands, and you can talk to them for a one-line insight into what's going on. These addition make characters a tiny bit better, but they are still fairly plain for modern standards.

 The game clearly wasn't given even half the budget that Final Fantasy VII Remake had, but they did the most with what they had. It's a very good looking, colorful game, but you can tell that some cutscene animations are very last gen and texture quality is a bit mediocre, thankfully, the style triumphs over its technicalities. Thankfully the game offers dual audio, because the English dub is very, very bad. I mean, a few characters like Angela sounded amazing, but Duran and Kevin? Uh oh.... they gave Kevin this very odd cave-man speech, which sounds even worse than it looks, and it's so weird because no other beast-man speaks like that, so it makes NO sense. Charlotte was also terrible. There were also quite a few ocurrences in which the animations didn't match the emotions behind the voices, which was SO jarring. When I replay the game later on Switch I'll be turning on the Japanese voices since there's no way they could get worse than these. As for the game itself, it runs at a smooth 60 fps, but loading times were a bit on the lengthy side.

 It's incredible how good of a remake this is, as the brunt of the game is pretty much identical. It being an RPG you're to walk from town to town, talking with NPCs while battling in dungeons and open zones.There's one tiny little change that might irk some people the wrong way... The game always tells you where to go and what to do, including the exact, specific NPCs you need to talk to in order to further the story. Yes, your hand is held the entire way through.... but honestly, I didn't mind it. Do you really want to talk to every single NPC searching for the one that will let you go on with the story? And it's not like there's no reason to talk to NPCs, some may reward you with equippable Skills. Want to do the bare minimum? Follow the stars. Want to involve yourself with the world of Mana? Go to town. It's not like there are invisible barriers preventing you from doing what you want to do. Want to visit places out of order? Go ahead, try your luck.

 Battling in this game is amazing, just like in the original, battles take place in real time, but the entire system was overhauled. Circle are your weak attacks, triangle are your strong attacks, that can be comboed into from weak attacks changing how they behave, square is a dodge and X is jump. L1 can be used to select your super moves, by spending energy from the CS gauge, which fills as you land attacks and recover fallen gems from monsters, while R1 can be used to quickly select spells or items you've added to the shortcut palette. Up on the digital pad opens up the ring item menu, to use items, while down on the digital pad opens up the ring spell menu. Lastly, L2 and R2 can be used to swap the character you are controlling. It plays fantastically, it really is fun. If the camera ever gets in the way, just press R3 to lock it onto an enemy. You can customize how the CPUs play, and to be honest, it's not perfect. I had Duran prioritize healing over attacking, but often times I found myself low on health with Duran preferring to attack enemies instead of healing me. I mean, I can order him to cast the spell, but I wish they were a bit smarter. All in all, the game feels SO good to play.

 The level up system was changed too, it's a bit better in some ways, and a bit worse in others. You still gain skill points when leveling up, which is neat, and you can then put them on Stats: Strength, Stamina, Spirit, Intelligence and Luck, however.... It's not a direct relationship between your actual stat and these stats. Putting points into Strength, for example, means that you'll unlock passive strength bonuses as well as certain spells or Skills when you reach certain thresholds. There's a list on the right side of the screen showing you what things you can get and upon reaching what amount of points invested. I wish it worked like in the original, but oh well, at least now we have skills. Each character can equip two skills, and gains two more every time you go up in Class, and these range from passive bonuses such as extra damage, to utilities such as spells sapping health from party members in order to make them stronger or even party-wide buffs! It's really neat, you could, for instance, make your glass cannon equip abilities to strengthen him when his health goes low, or equip survivality skills on your spell caster so that she doesn't die so easily.

 Upgrading your characters' classes works pretty much in the same way. upon reaching level 18 you can use any Mana Stone to either pick the Light or Dark class for your character, and then, upon reaching level 38 you can pick for the Light or Dark variations to the class you've got, but you need to get the right item from the ??? Seeds. What item you get is still random, but the game guarantees that the first six ??? seeds you get will yield all the items you need for either upgrade on every character in your party. And, in this game, you can reset your classes and your stat points, so if you want to try something else... you can. Every time you you upgrade your class you get more basic combo moves, an extension to your CS gauge, a new super attack and a new innate passive skill, the last two being unique depending on which class you chose. Oh, and if you liked how your character looked before a class change... you can pick any costumes from the classes you went through. I kinda wish I could pick any costume from any route, since while I like Light Kevin I prefer his Dark costumes, but oh well, I'll take what I can!

 After you finish the game you can partake in a new chapter that adds a 4th class change. Each character has to go through their own 1 on 1 boss fight and afterwards they can upgrade into Class 4. There are two Class 4 per character, which depend on your very first class choice. This new final dungeon is made up of recycled assets, but it's not too bad. Finishing the game unlocks New Game+ which retains your character levels and items, so you can try out new characters with your previously leveled characters or just try the other 3 characters you didn't choose. The final new addition is a sub-mission finding Li'l Cactus, every 5 times you spot him you get a neat new bonus, and the final rewarding is the best skill in the game, so good luck hunting.

 When Square-Enix promised new remakes THIS is what I wanted. No overly pompous pseudo-sequel bullcrap divided into multiple installments, but rather a modernization of the entire game while being as faithful as possible to the original. This game manages to capture what made the original SO good while changing mechanics to make them more fun due to modern standards. What needed streamlining, like Kevin/Charlotte's final dungeon was streamlined, what needed tweaking was tweaked and what should've kept the same was kept the same. In my eyes, this game completely replaces the original, and I'm looking forward to playing it again on the Switch. Provided my girlfriend lays off Animal Crossing.
 9.5 out of 10

Review #799: Assassin's Creed Unity

 The dad joke has gone on long enough.

 A lot has been said about Assassin's Creed Unity, and... well, I decided to play the game unpatched, as I always do, and it turned out not to be all that bad.It has issues to be sure, but it's a solid entry into the franchise. To think that back when this game was first announced I was midway through Assassin's Creed IV and it looked so good that I wanted to get a PS4 just for this game alone.... which I wouldn't do until a few more years passed, and not like it would matter since it received very poor reviews.

 The story pits you as Ezio Auditore da--I mean, Ezio's expy, Arno Dorian, another rich kid who's dad gets murdered by Templars, and later on, his adoptive dad gets murdered by the Templars which kick off his revenge story set during the French Revolution. Heck, even Arno's personality matches Ezio as a loveable rogue, albeit with a bit of a loser's streak. Arno even looks like Ezio when unrobed, and to be honest, I think it was done on purpose since they were playing it safe. Y'know, ever since they killed Desmond and ruined any potential the present-day sections had, the last few entries(IV, Rogue) were very cheesy in how they played out, and the whole Ubisoft as Abstergo and the player playing a videogame being part of the plot thing feels like a dad joke that has been going on for too long. Ubisoft didn't know what to do with Desmond, now they don't know what to do with Juno.... so just ax the modern day segments, we're here for the past adventures. Regardless, the modern day segments in this game are very brief, but just as cheesy, cutscenes of the Assassin Bishop contacting you and asking you to play through Arno's memories for her. I mean... I think I'm OK with this. All that said, as much as I ribbed on Arno's story for being a new take on Ezio, I actually thought the plot was decent, and I enjoyed the supporting cast. It's not the best plot of an AC game, but it's entertaining for what it is.

 Unity feels a lot like Assassin's Creed 2, and I say that as a good thing. It's been a while since we had a proper Assassin's Creed, as much as I enjoyed III, the buildings just weren't as tall as we had gotten used to, and IV and Rogue were brilliant, but they didn't really feel like Assassin's Creed. Paris is gorgeous and it's a blast to explore, this might very well be the largest map in an AC game yet. Heck, it might be a bit too big, for the first time in an AC game... I actually gave up on collecting every needless short dopamine burst collectible. But then again, I got a bit annoyed at the fact that revealing a district, by climbing to a particular tower or high building and "synchronizing" didn't reveal every single collectible or mission in the district. It'd reveal a few, but not all of them, and aimlessly running around hoping to come across one of the hundreds of useless collectibles isn't really my idea of fun. Plus, the map lies, sometimes it might tell you that you're missing a mission or two in a district.... but that mission is actually found on another district. It made no sense, it annoyed me and thus, I gave up. It's OK, I got most of the cockades, which unlocked colors for Arno's clothes, and got 80%+ of the chests, chests that only give you a modest sum of money(Although a very rare few contain equipment pieces). Speaking of chests, man, were Ubisoft really hoping you'd play their game online! Some chests can only be opened through Uplay and others can only be opened by playing on the companion app, Initiates. I did neither, screw you, Ubisoft. An annoyance of their push towards online on a mostly Single Player game comes in the inability to Suspend the game. That's right, you can't suspend the PS4 with this game running.

 Collectibles aside, the rest of the game plays as you'd expect, it's a parkour heavy open world action adventure game in which you accept missions and pursue the story. Besides the collectibles, there are a fair amount of side missions to partake in: Murder Mysteries, which get a bit tedious since the hint popups overlap each other during investigations, Riddles, which are incredibly hard to figure out without a guide, various assassination/robbery missions, Building renovation missions(Just pay a fee and then complete 3 side missions) and Helix Rifts, which are silly timed maps in which you must gather "data" before exiting. There are also two types of multiplayer missions, which can thankfully be played offline although their size makes them kinda boring in single player, Heists and Co-Op. Heists are about collecting valuables while trying to remain unseen, while Co-Op missions are more akin to normal side missions but bigger in scope, albeit with cringy introductory dialogue by Bishop. Since Ubisoft really wanted you to play online, each co-op mission has exclusive skill points to find, so you'll want to play them to upgrade Arno, as well as equipment rewards... with three rewards per mission, although you can only get one, so if you want every reward you have to play every single co-op mission three times. Lame.

 Ubisoft made a big stink out of animations being expensive being the reason for no playable female assassins but.... I recognized a ton of animations from previous games. At least the new animations are pretty neat, Arno likes to twirl sometimes when climbing roofs. Parkous has been tweaked a bit, Arno is, like every playable character before him, still a bit sticky, so controls aren't perfectly smooth just yet, sometimes you'll get stuck trying to climb things or trying not to climb things, which are things that I feel are unavoidable when making such a free flowing parkour system that lets you climb pretty much anything. The new tweak comes in the form of Parkour Up and Parkour down. Holding down the X button while running will make Arno take routes that go up, while holding circle will make him take routes that go down. It's a pretty small tweak, but I think it works pretty well. Combat is like AC IV but less rigid, enemies are back to health bars, thank god, so you no longer need to 'finish' them in order to kill them. Initially Arno can only attack, parry and dodge, but through Skills you can get a few more abilities, such as heavy slashes and staggering blows. Sometimes it felt as if my parry inputs didn't register, but it might be a framerate issue, since the game tends to stutter and fall below 30 fps every now and then.

 As for tools, Arno can equip a one handed-blade, a heavy weapon or a long weapon as his main weapon, and a pistol or a rifle for a side arm. It seems that by this time double hidden blades went out of style, so you only get one, but in this era it can be turned into a mini-crossbow, the Phantom Blade, that can also use Berserk Blades to make enemies turn on each other. Them you get smoke bombs to make an escape and cherry bombs to make some noise and distract guards. Rather skimpy, isn't it? Well, everything else is a Skill you must learn by spending skill points earned from story and co-op missions. Heck, the pistol/rifle equipment is a skill. This... this is a bit lame to be honest, y'see, I wanted to get health upgrade skills and lockpicking skills, which meant that for most of the game I had little to no tools. No poison gas, no disguise(Which is a fun new tool!), no money bags. Even double assassinations and air double assassinations, series mainstays since 2, but be gotten as a skill. And double assassinations felt a bit tricky to pull off, something I never felt with previous games.

 Customization was a big selling point of the game, and it's alright but with a few caveats. There are many different pieces(Hood, Chest, Arms, Belt and Boots) you can find, purchase and equip, and a lot of them are really cool.... but they affect your stats, so it's not like you can really equip anything you want. I mean, you can, but you'll get murdered very quickly. As per usual, as soon as I was given control of Arno I opted to do every bit of side content I could before starting the story, although level 3 lockpicks kept me from getting everything, but Sniper enemies could take me out in one shot because my armor wasn't up to snuff. So your stats matter, so taking that into account, the pool of equipment pieces you should use gets reduced quite a bit depending on how useful they are. On another note, the stat bars next to the equipment's description are a LIE, they symbolize how much they affect the stat, if you really want to know what your equipment piece does, you need to read the numbers below the lying stat bars. So a large "Stealth" bar doesn't mean you are stealthier, it could mean that it has boosts to how Eagle Vision works.

 And now.... performance. The game can run very, very poorly. I turned off the internet connection and I don't know if it was a Placebo effect, but the framerate seems to have gotten better. And while it struggles to match 30 FPS, it runs pretty much like AC 2 did on the PS3, so I'm used to it. Frame rate aside, the game only froze once, although a couple of side missions got bugged due to an NPC not spawning correctly or what have ya, so I had to reset the game... because there's no in-game reload checkpoint when not in a Story Mission nor is there a 'Back to main menu" option. The last cutscene in the game became hilarious in my playthrough, because Arno got bugged and his lips wouldn't stop moving, so characters were talking to him, or he was trying to be somber... but his lips wouldn't stop moving! One time, I killed an enemy on the roof, and I went to loot him, but Arno hadn't exited combat yet and something weird happened.... the camera got fixed in its place while Arno started running ON the air towards nothingness. If I stopped touching the analog stick he'd stop, but it didn't matter where I pushed the analog stick, Arno would only run forward. I hoped that I'd make Arno run out of boundaries, but even tough the textures of the Area the camera got stuck in unloaded.... Arno never got out of boundaries, so I had to reset the game. Lastly, the bug I came across the most, sometimes Arno would get teleported somewhere far behind where I was standing. I think it had something to do with an NPC that WASN'T in contact with me pushing me anyways, but I'm not sure, and it happened about 4 times. All in all, it's hardly as bad as people make it out to be. And I'm not claiming that the bugst that were reported weren't real, because there's video footage of it, but it doesn't seem to be as common as most people reported it to be. As for the rest of the game, it's on par with most modern open world games, so it didn't bother me too much. At least I could finish the missions, unlike, say, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

 Assassin's Creed Unity is a really good Assassin's Creed game. Not the best, not the worst. Paris is an absolute treat to explore, this is one of the most gorgeous game in the series, if not the most. That said, it's quite easy to see that they played it very safe and hoped that multiplayer would carry it. Arno is very similar to Ezio, and the changes to the basic gameplay were pretty small, although very welcome, I quite liked the Parkour up/down system, and I'm so glad we're back to enemy health bars!
 8.0 out of 10

Review #798: CIMA - The Enemy

 This game is the enemy of all mankind.

 CIMA: The Enemy looks pretty cool, I mean, just look at the game's cover, or search for footage or screenshots, and this game looks like a pretty decent JRPG, even the game's back-cover calls it an RPG. But it isn't. This game is a lemmings ripoff, a route coordinator simulator, a do the Macarena game if you will. You don't level up, you don't make choices and you don't save the world, you just set routes for people to follow. This is not an RPG, but this is one of the worst games I've ever played on the system. And the cherry on top? It's one of the GBA's uncommon games, often fetching undeservedly high prices.

 The game pits you as Ark, a 'Gate Guardian' that fights CIMA, human-looking villains that live off the despair of humans. While en route to their base on a train, the entire vehicle gets transported into a CIMA realm, and now Ark and Ivy, his partner, must reunite all 14 civilians and get them out of the CIMA dungeon. The game is 13 excruciating hours long, probably more if you decide to farm for items on previous dungeons. Every 'dungeon', of which there are about 15 or 16 is more or less the same, following the same exact formula: An introductory floor, you meet a civilian, and must rescue him or her on the next floor, then the party gets separated and you play a short bit as another civilian, then you play as Ark again and reunite the party, and it's usually on one of these segments that you find the key to the boss' door, and if you don't, tough luck, go up the dungeon until you find it. If you ask me, they were pretty hard to miss, I only missed the key on the first dungeon since I actually didn't know it was something I had to find, but I had no trouble afterwards.

 The gameplay is so bad because the entire game is an escort mission for an ever growing amount of idiots. Ark slashes with his sword with the A button, although other playable civilians have different weapons, as well as a charge attack. Each character has their own inventory, even the characters you don't get to play as, as well as a 5 item B-button item palette. NPCs, as well as playable characters that you aren't playing as at the moment, will automatically use this items if needed, while when characters are under your direct control you need to press B to access them. Heck, during boss fights you can't access your inventory, so these 5 items is all you get.

 Civilians can be freely allocated between four groups of up to four persons, although there are only 14 civilians, so one or two groups will be missing people. The L button is to swap between groups, because you can only issue orders by one group at a time, and the R button is used to set their walking routes, with up to three different 'stops'. You can either direct the entire group or issue commands one by one. Most of the time you'll be issuing commands to the entire group, but there are a lot of puzzles that involve pressure plates, so you might need to find the correct amount of people needed to step on a switch while other characters, or yourself, do something through a bridge said pressure plate activates. There are also two kid characters that are the only characters that can walk on brittle bridges.

 Some characters have special abilities. Emerle can heal anyone's poison if they stand next to her for a short while, and, supposedly, the Priest makes it so that enemies don't get close to him.... which is a bold faced lie, since enemies went after him and his group anyways. Also, most characters can't defend themselves, so try to put each group with at least one characters that can fight back. Not that that helps, because they are useless and they will get hurt anyways. Heck, a few puzzles are impossible to complete without getting someone hurt, which is completely stupid. Particularly because there's a garbage affinity system at play. As you slay enemies from endless enemy generators they may drop any of four gems which can then be used to craft consumable items. But only characters that "like" you will let you craft items. Every time they get hurt you'll lose affinity points, while if you kill an enemy close to them they MAY get a few affinity points. Oh, and most characters start off hating you. Truth be told, you only need Emerle and her husband to like you, since they can craft potions, but still. Even though characters may sometimes NEED to take damage to clear a puzzle, the affinity system is broken because you can just stick all civilians next to an enemy generator and pummel enemies ad-infinitum until they like you. I hate this game. Oh! And if ANYBODY dies it's game over, no ifs or buts.

 So, let me tell you how the game works. You move a group of people to a spot, and while they slowly make their way there, you spam the A button on top of the enemy generator/s that is/are on their way. Once they finally get to where you need them, now you press L and pick another group and do the exact same thing. Then the third group. Then the fourth. Initially it's not too bad, but every dungeon adds a new civilian, so the process becomes slower and slower. It's an incredibly boring game. Oh, and be careful with diagonals, characters love getting stuck on those, so you might need to alter their route on the fly. It sucks when you have to send NPCs through routes you can't access, because enemies WILL spawn, and even if these characters can fight back, they will still get hurt because they suck, and it will cost you affinity points because screw you. Speaking on that, sometimes you might not get a pressure-plate puzzle to open a door, but instead you have to defeat a number of enemies.... and they spawn out of thin air. It's very possible, and annoyingly common, that they will appear right on top of you, costing you a few health points, because that's how this poorly made game rolls. Oh, and sometimes you'll have to defeat an X amount of enemy generator enemies in order to proceed. The game doesn't change the music or give you any hint that this is what you need to do, you'll be aimlessly walking around, searching for a switch while battling endless enemies until the jingle sounds and the the way opens up. One time near the end of the game I was stuck for the longest time and I didn't know what I was supposed to..... turns out I had to hit an enemy into a pit. Maybe the game had other puzzles like this that I accidentally cleared, I've no idea, but it was so incredibly dumb and no hint to what the solution was.

 Oh, and I haven't started with Ivy yet. She's yet another handicap, but unlike the rest of the NPCs, she's always following you, occasionally shooting at enemies, but getting hit most of the time. Which, y'know, sucks a lot because if she dies you die and it's game over. The thing is.... she has trouble following you at times, so she might get stuck behind you, and while she's busy trying to walk through an invisible wall, she'll get hit by enemies endlessly spawning behind her. The parts with moving platforms are SO bad, because, as I implied, these platforms move, so if she gets stuck behind... she'll have no way to reach you anytime soon. And getting her on this platforms is SO finicky, if she doesn't get stuck trying to get on the bridge, you might not have walked far enough on the platform for her to hop on. And that's finicky as well, because if you move too far you may fall and lose health. IT'S SO DUMB!! This game is horrible, I can't understand how it got such decent reviews.

 And the bosses, oh god the bosses, each one has a very annoying pattern that is sure to kill you a few times. And the best part about it? You can't skip the lengthy cutscenes before each fight, so they are extra vexing. That said, bosses do get easier as you go down the later levels, not because you get stronger, not because you understand the game better, but because their patterns become fairer. It's like the developers slowly became better at designing fair bosses. But still, I wouldn't blame you if you dropped the game after the first boss. I had to had my hand held by a boss guide on the first 8-10 floors because having to endure the same cutscenes over and over again became intolerable.

 I have played a lot of bad games on the Gameboy Advance, I mean, just look at all the licensed games I've played this year, but CIMA: The Enemy is worse than most of them. The gameplay is SO slow and the mechanics are so poorly thought out and implemented that it won't be too soon if I never see this game again.
 2.0 out of 10

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