Review #806: Ray Gigant

 Does wonders for my gigantphobia.

 Part anime, part visual novel, part Evangelion and part first-person dungeon crawler, that's Ray Gigant in a nutshell. This is one of those games that not many people talk about, heck, there are no guides you can reference and discussion on both GameFaqs and Steam is pretty much dead.

 The game is made up of 19 chapter, in a world were giant enemies, Gigants, have appeared. The only people fit to fight them are teenagers, because Japan, and they come in two varieties: Originals and copies. The originals are the three chosen by the Yorigami, gods in artifact form, Ichiya, Kyle and Nil. Copies are other teens that exhibit the strength to wield weaker copies of the Yorigamis. The first six chapters you'll play as Ichiya, as he adapts to his school life as a Gigant exterminator. The next six you play as Kyle and his group of pricks, while Ichiya and his buddies take a supportive role as hostages. This was the part of the game I hated the most, because Kyle and his friends are incredibly unlikeable and I couldn't wait for this chapter to end, although his party becomes a bit more tolerable by the end. The next four chapters follow Nil and her island life with her sisters, and the reason her part is so short is probably because she is a mage and thus better suited in a support role. The next three chapters have Ichiya, Kyle and Nil, y'know, the guys on the game's cover, team up in order to fight Gigants. Overall, the story is not bad, but it's pretty forgettable. It has a few Evangelion tropes here and there but they do their own thing with them. All the story bits are very visual novel-like, lots of reading, decisions that amount to nothing and anime portraits galore. The game takes about 20 hours to complete, and upon completion you unlock God Mode, New Game+, Hard Mode and... you also unlock a new boss and ending for New Game+. I liked the story enough to want to see it, but not enough to want to play through the game again, sadly, since nobody knows this game there's no Youtube videos covering the extra bit. Lame!

 When characters stop talking you'll be able to enter a dungeon. For the most part, the game is divided into pairs of chapters: The first chapter you'll go through a multi-leveled dungeon and fight a smaller, Gigant Type-II enemy, and the next chapter you'll enter a short dimensional rift-dungeon and then fight a proper giant Gigant Type-I enemy. Dungeons start off simple enough, but by the end there will be one-way corridors, ladders that go up and down, teleporters and hidden walls. The latter are particularly annoying because some of them are needed to progress, and there are no hints besides leveling up a characters Technique skill enough. For the most part I was able to use my intuition and find them by myself, but still. The final dungeon is incredibly bad, because it mixes every single type of trap and annoyance, in addition to a few floors in which you can't track your position on the map. So... yeah, I'd say most of the game is quite fair, but the Final Dungeon was more annoying than anything

 Random encounters are not random encounters, because you can see them on the map and they remain static. They come in three colors: Blue, Yellow and Red, signifying their AP Cost, blue means its halved, yellow is normal and red is double the cost. AP is what governs your actions. Each party member can take up to five different actions per turn, however, they all share the same 100-max AP pool. AP can be regained depending on which actions the enemies did on their turn, as well as when your characters use the Wait command, which can only be done once per turn. Your HP is restored to full after each fight, but you can only revive characters by exiting the dungeon. Talking about HP, there's Parasite Mode to contend with. Whenever a battle goes on for more than one round you'll build your drive by 10%, once it's full your attacks will no longer cost AP but will start costing HP. This builds over different encounters too, and there are three ways to bring it down: Entering Parasite Mode, Using Slash Beat Mode or using a Skill Seed. Once all three main characters converge you'll be able to freely enter Parasite Mode at will with the L button. Slash Beat Mode is the final ability which can be used when your SP is at 50 or at 100. SP builds by 1 after each fight or by action taken during boss fights, you can the press the R button to enter a rhythm minigame mode in order to deal tons of damage.

 At first you can only have 3 different battle skills per character, but after the first chapter you'll be able to have 2 sets of three different skills. One skill has to deal damage, one has to be defensive and the other one can be anything you like. There's a decent variety of skills, different elements and enemy types(Undead, Aquatic, Flying) to contend with, although having a basic, non-elemental attack command is always useful... as long as your equipped weapon isn't weak against a certain type. It sounds very deep, but the game is very easy. On another note, you do not need to waste resources on your non-Yorigami party members, because they won't be selectable after Ichiya, Kyle and Nil join up. For Ichiya, I beat his chapters just fine, with Kyle I had to give a few level ups to his pal, Conner, in order to tank some hits and heal the party with scones during his final battle, and as for Nil... I didn't need to level up the others. That said, you could probably have an easier time if you leveled up the other party members, I just didn't feel like it was worth it.

 Leveling up and getting equipment is very weird. After each battle you'll get Materia, Breed and maybe Force. Materias are used to level up a characters item box, be it their weapon, armor or item(which works as a limitless battle skill) boxes, then you can use a Breed on that item box to get an equipment piece or item that matches the box's level. Force is a bit rarer and is used to unlock skills, both passive as well as battle skills. The last kind of item are the Seeds, which can be found exclusively on item boxes or from bosses, and these are used to level up a character in either: Power(Health, defense and strength), Magic(Magic defense and power) and Technique(Speed and... hidden wall hints). At first every character caps at level 15, but you'll unlock level 99 during the final chapters, not that is necessary. I had Kyle and Nil at a comfortable level 40 and 30, while I had Ichiya with 70 levels on Power, wrecking and decimating everything. I level up the other characters' boxes up to level 20, but kept Ichiya's beyond level 40 and that was enough to beat the game quite comfortably.

 While animation during battles is quite minimal, the sprites are quite gorgeous, so even though it's barely animated it still looks very good. The static character portraits look quite pleasant as well. That said, when you use Slash Beat Mode you'll get a very brief, but very good looking anime cutscene in which your Yorigami turns into their Kamibito form. On the other hand, the dungeons are very rudimentary and reuse a lot of assets, which makes them feel like an afterthought.

 I'd say Ray Gigant is a decent way to pass the time when you've nothing better to play. The story is decent enough to keep you interested and the gameplay is quite serviceable. That said, it's understandable why the game never managed to get a following, from its mostly digital release(Unless you got your LGR copy, like myself) to its more niche visual novely appeal.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #805: Ape Escape

 Worth going ape for.

 Ape Escape was more than just another platform-collectathon game, it was a proof of concept of what could be done with a second analog stick. Gimmicky as it may have been, its design was strong enough to produce a series. While I played Ape Escape 2 in my younger years it's never too late to revisit the classics.

 In the game you play as Spike, a boy who sets out to capture Specter, a white monkey that has brainwashed his best friend Jake as well as a ton of monkeys who are now doing his bidding. Surprisingly, the game has a time travelling theme, though the levels barely reflect that. Be that as it may, the game is made up of 6 worlds with 3 stages each, as well as a final world with a single stage, each one having a different amount of Monkeys and Specter Coins to capture and collect. The latter are used to unlock minigames, although only 40 of them are needed. The three minigames can be played in multiplayer, and a surprising amount of attention went into them: Ski Boys is a racing skiing minigame that has multiple characters and tracks, Specter Boxing is a boxing match between two monkey, and, finally, Galaxy Monkey, an asteroids clone. Same as with the main game, all minigames involve using both analog sticks. All in all, it's a very meaty game. If there's anything to complain about is that it goes the Mario 64 route of exiting you from levels before you got 100% of the collectibles, so you'll be making two trips at bare minimum if you are willing to complete the game.

 As mentioned before, the game's main selling point is its heavy use of both analog sticks. The left analog stick is used to move around, R1/R2 is used to jump, L1 sets the camera behind you, although you can use the directional pad to move it around, the face buttons are used to select your gadgets while the right analog stick actually uses the selected gadget. There are four face buttons and 8 gadgets, so expect to visit the gadget menu quite often, although it's not too bad, just a press of the select button. Gadgets are earned as you play through the game, and these tools are your keys to capturing every monkey. Monkeys can only be capture with the net, but it's so slow that it's not a bad idea to first knock them out with the baton before going in for the capture. Other gadgets include a Radar, a Hoola Hoop that must be spun in order to boost your speed, a helicopter-rod to reach high places, an RC cart  and even a slingshot.

 The game is quite fun, and the game makes decent use of its gadgets. That said, and it might be unfair, but I think the sequel does everything this game does but better, heck, a lot of the gadgets are reused and, in my opinion, put to better use. For instance, the Hoola Hoop's use in this game is quite scarce, while the second game made it mandatory to go over inclined surfaces. And remember, I'm not saying this game is bad, au contraire, it's just that the sequel would expand and polish everything this one did.

 As fun as the game is, I felt like the camera was a teenie tiny too zoomed in for my liking, and the framerate can get laughably low at times. Thankfully, the latter never got in the way, it's just a minor inconvenience. I found the game's overall look to feel very Nintendo 64ish, even if the rough, sharp graphics are undeniably Playstation's, so I'd say the presentation is pretty darn great. Colorful, fun and very endearing.

 Ape Escape's biggest problem is its own sequel, it does what this game does but so much better, it probably helps that they recycled many stage themes and gadgets in that game. That said, Ape Escape is still a top-notch platform/collectathon game that managed to build a fantastic game out of a gimmick.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #804: Remember Me

 Ironically forgotten by time.

 Ever since I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake I've been itching for a linear action game, the likes we don't really see anymore but FFVIIR reminded me of. Well, there was this little game nobody remembered, published by Capcom but developed by Dontnod, of Life is Strange's fame, called Remember Me. This is a very linear beat'em up with a very pervasive narrative and the mandatory parkour then-modern games made mandatory since Uncharted.

 You play as Nilin, a Memory Hunter that peculiarly got her memory stolen from her, but a mysterious character named Edge aids her in recovering her memories and finishing what she started: The dismantling of Memorize, the company that has turned memories into a currency that people sell, delete, change or trade at will. I found the story itself OK, and a few reveals later down the line felt a bit half baked, but it's alright. That said, the story had a bit more potential that wasn't explored. For instance, throughout the game Nilin will remix the memory of some people, like turning an enemy into an ally by altering their memories so that their significant other was murdered by Memorize. This character never finds out  their lover is actually alive and that their new ally, Nilin, actually tempered with their memories, how great a plot point could it have been? That aside, I enjoyed the world of New Paris, it's very Cyberpunk, with androids co-existing with civilians, while the lower class people have to be wary of Leepers, broken people that abused their memories too much. Plus, I enjoyed the fact that Nilin is kind of an anti hero, the way she manipulates peoples' minds is all sorts of screwed up!

 The narrative is a big part of the game, so if you hate it when your action games have forced walking segments.... look elsewhere, as calls between Nilin and Edge are fairly frequent. There are also a very few, very simple puzzles to solve, most of them involve using the Spammer, a digital weapon attached to Nilin's arm that works like a machinegun and runs on a gauge that refills over time. You'll have to find switches to shoot with it, objects to pull and push and, sometimes, take away the 'energy' from a machine and put it in another. It's all fairly basic and easy to figure out. On the other hand, there are a few story segments, four in all, in which you remix a person's memory, this involved a small fragment of memory that you have to remove or push forward, searching for memory glitches, which are things you can affect and alter in order to change how that memory works, the objective being finding the glitch combination that'll alter the memory in the way the game tells you to. It's not hard at all, although, to be honest, I felt they were a bit dull, I mean, I didn't care too much about these segments, although I enjoyed the concept of the Hero manipulating a character's memories.

 Movement in the game is fairly stiff, which makes the parkour climbing bits a bit spotty. A few times my jumps should've made it onto a ledge, but they simply didn't. Other times, the game auto corrected my jump while I was on the air which looked SO weird. Once again, where to go is quite obvious most of the time. That said, exploring is in your best interest, since you can find permanent upgrades to your health or your focus.

 Combat feels like a stiffer version of Batman Arkham's, tap the attack button to attack enemies, while being on the lookout for Red exclamation marks, in which case, press X to dodge. It's got a twist, however, as you can create combos using the Square and Triangle buttons. Initially, you start of with a 3-square hit combo, but as you go through the game you'll unlock a five hit combo, a six hit combo and an 8 hit combo, these latter three also using the triangle input. Defeating enemies earns you PMP points, which can then be used to unlock different combo attacks, called Pressens, that are pre-set to either Square or Triangle. Every attack deals the same damage, so it's about cosmetics... and typing. There are four types of Pressens: Power, which deal extra damage, Healing, that heal you, Cooldown, that reduce the cooldown on your Super attacks and Chain that takes the type of the attack that came before it but potentiated. It's a very interesting system, but I think it would've been even better if we could customize the inputs of the combos themselves, like, getting a three hit combo and not a 'three square combo'. I understand why this was done, it's a limitation, since a Pressen can only be in one combo at a time, so sometimes you'll have to pick whether to keep your trusty 3-hit combo or use those inputs for the longer combos, at least until you level up and can get a new Pressen.

 Throughout the game you'll also unlock 5 different S-Pressens, or Super moves. Each super move consume a Focus slot, which refills as you take and land hits, as well as its own cooldown. Cooldown Pressens will reduce the cooldown on every S-Pressen that are in cooldown period. It's a decent system, but... some fight rely on you using super moves, which sucks because it means there's a lot of cooldown waiting between your moves. For instance, the only way you can deal damage to the first boss is by using the Rage super move, that means that you have to use the super, and then.... use your combos as he blocks them in an attempt to reduce the cooldown on the super so that you can use it again. At first I couldn't believe so much of the fight was just waiting, but that was how you were supposed to fight him. Robot enemies are introduce later in the game, and they can only be hit with the Spammer, and every now and then they'll pop a barrier.... so more waiting for the barrier to go down. There were a lot of instances in which battles required some kind of waiting or trying to reduce the cooldown on you super moves, which I felt didn't jive very well. Heck, aiming with the spammer at enemies is sometimes a bit annoying, as it can be hard to get the lock-on to focus on the enemies that you need it to. Later in the game force-field enemies are introduced, which take health away from you on every hit that you land on them. This means that as soon as they are introduced you have to dedicate an entire combo string to healing pressens, otherwise you'll be fighting them at a loss, which was SO dumb. Eventually you get a Super move that can instakill any single enemy, but still.... I shouldn't be forced to retool how my combos work just for a single enemy type, I think that goes against the creative premise behind building your own combos. Oh, and by the by, every boss ends with a QTE. At least they are not too long, but still.

 Besides how janky and stiff both combat and exploration feels, I had the game crash on me once, and from what I could gather, it seems crashes are not a rare occurrence with the game. And chapter 5 has a song track SO bad I thought my disc was faulty, so I searched for a let's play and... nope, it's just that bad.

 They had a vision, they had the budget, but I don't think they had quite the technical know-how to produce the game they wanted. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, and it has some very neat ideas, but it feels like it was a few tweaks away from being a more memorable game.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #803: Freedom Wars

 Forever prisoner of the Vita.

 The Vita might not have had a Monster Hunter to call its own, but it sure as hell had a lot of clones, and Freedom Wars was one of the last ones to hit this underrated handheld. Think of Gods Eater meets Attack on Titan with a speck of Danganronpa, in the form of a dystopic bear mascot and you've got Freedom Wars.

 The story is set in a world in which resources are scarce, and if you're not very bright you're a Sinner who must prove its worth to its Panopticon by defeating giant monsters, called Abductors, as well as Sinners from other Panopticons. The story is kind of a mixed bag, you play as a mute amnesiac hero who slowly climbs through the ranks, gaining access to tougher missions. There's a very plain supporting cast that gets some lines here and there, and there's a bigger overarching plot regarding a mysterious waif that warns you about your destiny as her chosen one. It's not very interesting, and at times, the plot gets in the way of the game. Plenty of times before unlocking more missions you'll have to go through a ton of "Go X and speak to Y" sections that drag on for a bit too long, doesn't help that the dialogue isn't very interesting nor is the story. The setting fares a bit better, thankfully, since as a Sinner you have to earn points in order to earn more rights. Initially if you try to even walk more than 5 seconds straight you'll get a penalty in the form of added years to your sentence, and yes, it's kind of annoying, but missions are very generous with the years they take off from your sentence.

 The game plays as you'd expect: Take on missions fighting giant enemies, harvest their parts and use them to craft better equipment and then set out on harder missions. It's a satisfying gameplay loop that has proved its worth countless times already. You can take up to two different weapons with you, with could be a gun and a sword, two swords, or two guns, anything is fair game as well as a few combat items, such as health packs or grenades. You can also pick up to three different NPCs to aid you in missions, they are not completely idiotic, and if anything, they are decent bait and will regularly try to revive you before you waste a continue, plus, their deaths don't remove continues. Lastly, both you and your party have 'accessories', which are androids that you can customize who'll check that you're not breaking rules, but in combat can be customized to carry a single weapon of your choice, and, unlike other party members, they will always put reviving their Sinner as their priority.

 Every Sinner also comes equipped with a Thorn tool, of which there are three varieties: Binding, which is better at bringing abductors down, Healing, which can be used to heal other Sinners and Shield, that can be used to cover yourself as well as your allies. The thorn looks like a thorny vine gripped on your wrist, and you can use it to climb on top of Abductors or to cling on to any wall or floor. Once you get the hang of it, you can use the thorn to quickly zip around the battlefield, and it's quite fun to be honest. Instead of jumping onto an enemy, which can be useful to sever their arms, you could also use the thorn to drag them down in order to gain a few seconds worth of free hits. The more you drag them down the more resistance enemies get to the feature, but the other sinners can cast their thorns as well in order to help you.

 There's not much enemy variety, which kinda sucks. There are both biped and quadriped abductors and artillery abductors, and the game tries to add variety by equipping them with various sorts of weapon pods: Missiles, Grenades, Lasers, Shields and Miniguns, but in the end, they all work quite the same, except maybe when they come equipped with Shields, in which case you must sever those pods first if you want to inflict any damage. Afterwards, you'll fight Flying Tiger abductors, Spider abductors and, during the post game, a guest from Soul Sacrifice. And that's it. Probably, in order to add some sort of variety, they added a few different mission types, such as rescuing civilians, some which may be found inside the Abductors' bodies, in which case you can opt to either slay the Abductor or just focusing on severing the cage and rescuing the civilian, as well as missions in which you only fight other Sinners.... which are the most annoying kind of enemy to fight with Heavy Weapons, since its slow, deliberate attacks are better suited for larger targets. Thankfully, allied Sinners are really good at fighting enemy sinners. There are also some boring stealth missions, which are incredibly easy and incredibly boring. Oh, and the pick-up civilian button is the same as the pick up item button which is the same as the USE item button, which was as annoying as it sounds. Eventually I settle for bringing an open slot on my item pouch I could default to when I didn't need to use healing or to having Heat blades on my inventory, which are used to sever limbs and wouldn't go to waste if I pressed circle while standing on the ground.

 The upgrade system is, quite honestly, completely outta whack. First you need to create Weapon Facilities, since a facility can only work on a single item at a time. There are also Munition, Augmentation and Hospital facilities, and there are about 16 slots I think, and once again, each facility can only work on one request at a time. After you select what weapon you want to craft or upgrade you have to... wait. That's right, the game could have you wait anything from 10 to 22 minutes. What were they thinking? If you have time management civilians rescued you can use them to speed up the process, but still. At least the time counter goes down while the Vita is suspended, but this system is completely idiotic. Why do I have to wait before I can use my new weapon or my upgraded weapon? If I didn't have to partake in the dumb "Go X to progress the story" segments I'd just turn off the Vita for a spell and then return to the game, which is such a horrible design choice. And don't even let me get started on how hard it is to figure out what you need to kill in order to get the material you need. Sometimes it'll be called something like "Carapace: Marksman mk2", which means that now you know you need to kill a Marksman mk2.... but which mission had those? Who knows, screw you. And then you'll get something like "Synthetic generator" which doesn't even begin to clue you in on what you need to kill.

 All in all, Freedom Wars is not half bad, but I think it's far from the best Monster Hunter clones the Vita has to offer. After I finished the Story I played a few post-story missions before concluding that my time with the game had ran out and it had nothing left to offer me. I think zipping around monsters and buildings with the Thorn was pretty fun, and the combat itself is quite decent, but the game could've used more variety and better designs choices when it came to everything else.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #802: TimeShift

 Ironically forgotten by time.

 Last year I made a thread asking for a very specific kind of game, games like Dungeon Siege or Half-Life 2, in which you are always moving forward, and always in control, y'know, a game that feels like one big whole. This first-person shooter, TimeShift, was recommended, and right after the third stage I knew... I knew that it definitely wasn't what I wanted. That said, I'm not disappointed in my purchase, because despite it being another grey fps in a grey-and-brown world it has a few original mechanics and ideas that make it rather fun.

 The plot of the game was hard to follow, but you play as a mute scientist wronged by another scientist named Krone. Both were working on Time-shifting suits, the Alpha and the Beta suit, and for an undisclosed reason Krone betrays you and steals the Alpha suit. Now you get the Beta suit and track him through time in an effort to stop him destroying the lab and killing everyone. Kinda. You travel to a very futuristic looking 1939 and assist a resistance group in stopping the new Krone world order. Throughout the game you'll get flashbacks to before the big betrayal, but nothing of worth is told, it's pure fat. The game is 24 missions long, which is pretty decent, sadly, multiplayer was online only, so no offline versus.

 At first glance, this is just your every day modern FPS, with regenerating health and a three-gun limit, which is one more gun than most modern fps. Every gun has an alternate fire, which is a pretty neat throwback to classic FPSs and melee doesn't instantly kill your enemy, so it's more like a last resort kind of tool. What set this game apart is the ability to Slow, Pause and Rewind time, thanks to your suit. There's a blue gauge shared by all three abilities that dictates when and for how long you can use these abilities, and it regenerates over time. I think that it refills a bit faster when you're getting hit, but it might've felt like that. Using these time abilities is paramount for your survival, because despite having this amazing suit you are quite fragile, and triggering any time ability will also boost your regeneration speed.

 The suit will autoselect the most 'appropriate' power for the situation you're in, so that you can just press L1 to activate, but if you disagree, just hold L1 and press the designated face button. For the most part, it'll default to Slow, it will go towards Pause when dangerously low on health and will select Rewind if a grenade is coming your way. Pause and Rewind may seem similar, but they have different uses, Slow actually makes you faster and lasts way longer than Pause which is why it makes it so useful when you need to retreat for cover, as it'll give you ample time compared to pause. Pause is better when fighting smaller groups of enemies or when fighting enemies that can also slow down time or teleport. Rewind was my least used ability in combat, and only used it because the game defaulted to it sometimes.

 Another way you can toy with your powers is by pausing time and stealing the weapons from your enemies' hands. Or you can just shoot them out of their hands too if that's your approach. Enemies explode in satisfying chunks of blood after being pelted with bullets while in Time Pause which never ceases to be fun. Most enemies are immune to headshots, justified by helmets, and was probably done to compensate for your time controlling prowess. There's a fair amount of different weaponry in the game, my favorites where the Shotgun, which felt so good, and the machinegun that had a flamethrower alternate fire. While your character is frailer than a CoD protagonist, the game feels more close to games like Painkiller and Doom, with fast paced shooting mechanics that feel nice... but as a whole feels a bit weird, since the gameplay almost makes you want to start circle-strafing everyone to death, but that will only get you killed in seconds flat.

 There are a few simple puzzles in the game that task you with using your time powers, they are pretty simple and the game usually defaults the right power, so you can easily figure out what it entails. That said, there are smart uses of your powers, such as two levers needing to be pulled at the same time, so you slowdown time and run to the other lever and pull it. Or use Rewind to make a turbine blow you upwards instead of vacuuming the air. Or pause/slow down time in order to cross through a board balancing on a pivot. They are not hard to figure out, but they make sense for your powers, which is pretty neat. I had a few iffy moments with some of the platforming elements, but nothing game breaking.

 While it wasn't anywhere near close to what I wanted, TimeShift was very fun in its own right. Time Shifting was well implemented, and easily sets it apart from other games.... although it seems that that just wasn't enough to stand out when your game looked like every other grey-and-brown shooter of its era.
 7.0 out of 10

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