Review #835: Ghost of Tsushima

 Assassin's Creed Ninja

 It's been a while since Sucker Punch released anything, hasn't it? But they mark their return with Ghost of Tsushima, an open world action-stealth game that is pretty much Assassin's Creed but with Samurai, or rather, ninja. Yeah, that's right, I said it, this is not a Samurai game, but a Ninja game

 The game is set in a 13th century Japan, during which Japanese forces thwarted an invasion by the Mongul empire. You play as Jin, the last surviving big-name Samurai after a Mongul attack, and he, as the lone survivor, must now rescue his captured Uncle and free Tsushima from the Mongul. But a honor-bound Samurai can't hope to match the Mongul forces who knows no such limit, so he'll have to learn to fight without honor. Kill the enemies while hiding under the shadows, poison them as if he were another bandit and exploit every advantage in his favor. The internal struggle within Jin between everything he considered sacred against his very survival is a very interesting story. That said, the story is incredibly predictable, I figured out that I would have to fight a certain someone, as well as a certain character dying as soon as I met them. It does have its moments though, and Jin's trusty allies are very compelling characters themselves, thanks in no small part due to the fact that they even get their own sets of missions that develops them. All in all, it's a mostly solid plot, with a few low points here and there, but a few high points that make up for them.

 The game plays pretty much exactly like Assassin's Creed. You get a huge open-world to explore, and each act opens up a new section of Tsushima to explore. Besides your main missions, the game is filled with side activities to find and items to collect. There are 18 hot springs that extend your life bar, 18 Bamboo button-pressing tests to upgrade your resolve, about 49 fox shrines to find that'll give you more charm slots as well as the best charm in the game, 15 Shrines to platform your way to the top for great charms, 19 Haiku to compose for headbands(This are silly, as you must pick three verses between three options and no way of knowing what comes next, so they can end up being quite nonsensical), 23 Pillars of Honor to get new sheathes for your Katana and Tanto, a ton of encampments and villages you must free from Mongols as well as side missions from NPCs. And those are the ones that matter, there are also Mongol artifacts to find, caged crickets, Mongol records and banners that you can collect if you just can't avoid that dopamine rush you get every time you get a collectible. Oh, and let's not forget, this is an open world game, so of course there are all sorts of materials, like wood, bamboo, flowers, iron and gold that you can collect from the environment in order to upgrade your equipment or get dyes for your armors. Open-world tropes, this game's got you covered. While Jin isn't as nimble as an Assassin or an Infamous hero, there are multiple ledges spread throughout most mountains so that you can climb then one way or another, as well as a trusty horse that'll find you every time you whistle. Lastly, the more you open up the map, the more places you'll be able to fast travel to you'll get.

 Combat starts off interesting but ends up formulaic. You get two attacks: Fast and Strong, and you can also dodge, block and parry. Block and Parry have their own skill trees, so you can eventually unlock perfect versions of those, relying on timing, that will make them even better. The only reason you aren't block or parrying all the time is that attacks with a red glint on them are unblockable and must be dodged. You can also help yourself in combat with quick weapons, such as Kunai, Sticky bombs or even a stone to put fire on your blade. You also have Resolve, which fills as you parry attacks and kill enemies. At first, resolve can only be used to heal yourself, but if you're an explorer you'll find quests that will grant you new uses for your resolve, mostly in the form of powerful new attacks. Now, here's where it gets formulaic: You'll eventually unlock four 'stances' and each stance is strong against a specific type of enemy: Shields, Lances, Swords and Brutes. Not facing enemies in the correct stance will have fighting an uphill battle, which means that battles just turn into selecting the right stance and then mashing triangle until you break the enemy's defense and then mashing square, while being mindful of incoming attacks. You could also take a more defensive approach and wait for them to attack and parry into an opening, the time window is pretty generous anyways. Either way, the combat is decent, and it looks and feels intense, but it's nothing special. As for the challenge, if you screw up you can get yourself killed quite easily, but it's not a hard game at all and death is quite forgiving. One thing is true, however, it doesn't matter how brainless the combat gets, it remains entertaining from beginning to end. The animations are stylish and swift, and everything feels intense and violent, making combat not get as boring as it should.

 Other forms of combat come in the form of Stand Offs and Duels. A stand off can be pulled off when first approaching a group of enemies, which will initiate a minigame in which you must let go off the triangle button as soon as an enemy attacks, which will instantly kill an enemy and refill a ton of your resolve. They will try feints to make you mess up, and if you do, you'll be left with a sliver of health to try defend yourself. Duels on the other hand, are special and more dramatic one-on-one fights against bosses. These are cool, at first, but every single duel enemy fights exactly the same, from the very first duel in the game to the final one. Well, I lie, the big bad of the story actually has his own style, mostly because he fights with a halberd instead of a Katana. To get an edge in battle you can equip charms on your sword, for all sorts of benefits, such as getting a bit of health back every time you kill an enemy(This charm NEVER left my sword), as well as find and equip various armors with special properties to give you an advantage on different fronts.

 And you'll want some advantages, because besides how samey it can get, combat has a few issues. For instance, there's no lock-on or targeting system, so it's up to you and the right analog stick to try to keep up with every incoming attack. Remember how I mentioned how, while the game is overall pretty easy, one mistake could get you killed quite quickly? Well, when fighting groups of enemies they love to swarm you and attack you while you are attacking one of their buddies, and it's impossible to keep track of everyone. Switching stances mid-combat(R2+Any face button) can sometimes be spotty, because sometimes, quite uncommon to be honest, R2 won't bring up the stance select menu so you won't get the stance that you need. Oh, and the Stand Offs? This is an open world game, so you may come across a group of enemies at any time. Stand offs are one of the very few places in which you can't turn the camera, and the game is so rich in foliage and the such... that it's quite easy for shrubs, sticks and grass to actually cover your enemy, giving you no way of seeing if they are feinting or attacking!

 While the game chides you at first for using underhanded methods to win, such as showing you flashbacks between Jin and his Uncle when you first backstab someone and when you first use a poison dart against an enemy, stealth is a key element of the game. Jin can blend in tall grass, use a Asassin's Creed-like eagle eye to spot enemies around him, as well as all sorts of tools to help him, such as a wind chime to attract enemy attention. Jin also gets two types of bows to deal with enemies from afar, and a blowgun to use poison or berserk status-inducing darts. Did I mention this game borrows a lot from Assassin's Creed? Very late in the game, at the end of the second act, you'll unlock Ghost Stance. By killing 7 enemies without getting hit you'll be able to press L3+R3 to enter a super state in which you can kill three enemies for free, with high chances of terrifying enemies around you afterwards.

 As for the missions themselves, they are pretty much what you'd expect. Sometime you'll have to murder someone, sometimes you'll have to defeat some enemies, sometimes you'll have to track enemies... it pretty much feels like missions you'd get in Assassin's Creed, even the boring 'trail enemy from behind' objectives! On the other hand, this is easily Sucker Punch's most cinematic game, whenever a story scene plays out it's a pure treat. The camera angles, the voice acting, the music, everything is on point. The game is filled with beautiful scenery to marvel at too, this is easily one of the games I've taken the most screenshots of.

 The developers were so inspired by the Assassin's Creed template that they also kept bugs and glitches in the game. Nothing too game breaking, but for instance, every now and then your ammo will disappear. It seems that some sidequests forget about your enhanced capacity upgrades, so it'll bring down all your ammo counts to the default capacity. Another issue is that sometimes the game won't realize that you are actually not in combat, and thus it won't let you fast travel. But by far the biggest bug happened during one of Norio's sidequests, the final one. Every time I followed him, the game would teleport me to an enemy catapult a bit far away, which would make me lose the mission with no way to get back to Norio. I feared for my savefile, because I even reset the game, but I realized I could abandon the mission. So I went to the catapult on horse and as I neared it... the game, once again, teleported me right next to it, but since I wasn't on a quest, I was able to destroy the catapult. When I tried the quest again I was able to finish it just fine.

 Ghost of Tsushima is a very solid open world action-stealth game, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. It ticks every single box and follows every single trope these games contain, but, in the game's defense, everything it does it does really well, without really excelling anywhere. But what it lacks in depth it makes up in style, what it lacks in originality it makes up in quality. Now, then, I'm ready to return to the world of Infamous.
8.0 out of 10

Review #834: All Kamen Rider - Rider Generation 2(DS)

 Nope, not gonna reuse the Henshin tag line.

 A few years ago, when I first got the PSP, I played All Kamen Rider: Rider Generations 2 and it was swell. Well, here I am, playing the same game but on the DS, so I'll make it short and sweet.

 This game is a very simple, but very fun beat'em up game. You move from left-to-right laying waste to every enemy that comes in your path. You've got weak combo strings, strong attacks, special moves, super moves and Rider moves, although, to be fair, most characters are pretty samey. Regardless, it's a fun time. Everything I said about the PSP version still holds water for this one

 Differences between versions: For starters, the HUD is different., since the PSP had a wider, bigger screen, you get a less cluttered screen, and the graphics in this one are a bit choppy, the sprites get very pixelated, and there's a lot of slowdown. It doesn't get in the way of game, but most of the time you'll feel like you are playing under water. Healing items are now used via the touchscreen. But it does have one upside, however, it has virtually no loading times. Neither version of the game is better, but for my money... I think I'd stick with the PSP version, I can handle loading times, and once you look at the crispest version of the game there's no going back. That said, the DS version isn't a poor alternative, it still plays great, but it doesn't play or look as smoothly as the other version.

 What can I say, I had fun coming back to this game. It's still a very charming and entertaining Kamen Rider game, and the huge 57 character roster is a big, big selling point. Although I won't lie, I stuck to my boy Kiva for most of the game again. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!
 7.5 out of 10

Review #833: Naruto Shippuden - Ninja Destiny 2

 You name it and Dream Factory will get a random dungeon generator in it.

 For the longest time I thought that Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 was nothing more than a stripped down port of Clash of Ninja, I even looked at videos and it looked really similar. But I was wrong, a Sober Dwarf video taught me that the Ninja Destiny sub-series of games were developed by DreamFactory, the guys that made Tobal and Ergheiz! And while this is a one-on-one 3-D fighting game that looks a lot like Clash of Ninja, it's a very different game!

 The game has a small but acceptable number of modes: Story Mode, Single Player(VS CPU, Survival, Quest Mode) and Wireless VS. The story mode goes from the Rescue Gaara arc up to the first time Naruto and Sasuke meet. It's very abridged and very boring. It has a very small top-down Konoha town you can run through in a few chapters of the Story, completely unnecessary but totally amusing, as well as a few segments that, while still played on a top-down view, are made up of randomly generated areas, with random encounters that trigger one-on-one fights against generic ninja. Survival and VS CPU are pretty much self explanatory, but then we've got Quest Mode which is a mode made up of 30 randomly generated floors, in which you can level up your character and collect helpful items you can use mid-fight. It's also very, very boring.

 The basic roster is made up 22 characters, which as you can easily figure out, are not enough to cover the basics. Oh, and three of those are Naruto and his Kyuubi forms. We're missing characters such as Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Ino and Choji, although in the game's defense, they hadn't had any fights during this time in the manga, so they would've had to make up techniques for their now grown-up selves. If you are good enough, or learn how to exploit the CPU, you can unlock the 12 original, pre-timeskip characters from the original game. Oh, yeah, unlocking characters can be a bit of a pain. One-tailed Naruto needs you to beat the story in the 'Difficult' setting, which is incredibly unfair since some fights in that mode have you dealing scratch damage to the bosses. Unlocking the pre-timeskip characters requires beating 15 enemies in said difficulty setting on the Survival mode. Honestly, I just mashed Y with basic Naruto and pressed L when necessary, and, somehow, I unlocked everyone. Well, mostly, y'see, Four-tailed Naruto requires beating the 30-floor dungeon with all 10 available charaters. I finished it with Sasuke and it was SO DAMN BORING that I don't even care about four tailed Naruto anymore.

 Thankfully, in the fighting the game really shines. You have a weak and a strong attack that can be comboed together, each character has different combo strings, and you also have different attacks depending on which direction you press alongside either button. Y is used to jump, because up and down on the d-pad are side-steps, and A can be used to pull off your super move when your chakra gauge is full... or you can use 50% of your chakra to teleport behind an enemy, it can be used defensively, to avoid damage or to avoid a combo, or offensively, to extend some combos or just to exploit an opening, which adds a lot of freedom into how you tackle a fight. The lower screen can be touched to use support items, each character gets six different items before a battle.

 While Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 has mediocre content, the actual fighting is actually pretty good. The L-teleport mechanic lends itself to some very fun and exciting fights, and the game looks quite good considering it's a 3-D DS game, with fine animations to boot. It's not the most competitive of anime fighters, even a cursory glance reveals that some characters(Sasuke... just like in Clash of the Ninja Revolution for Wii!) are undeniably better than others, with better combo potential and tools, but for a handheld game it's tolerable. Still, while I'm willing to be forgiving on fighting games that have great gameplay but poor single player modes, that just won't fly with a handheld game, which lives and dies on said content,
6.5 out of 10

Review #832: Sonic - Lost World(3DS)

 The Wii throwback nobody asked for!

 I hate to admit it, but I hate Sonic. I hate having to do that because it might make it seem like I am biased, since I grew up with Mario, but believe me, I've always wanted to like Sonic. I've always wanted to play the Adventure series, even though Adventure 1 on PC wasn't very fun. I was so hyped for Sonic heroes when I was younger. And I haven't been excited about a Sonic game since... until Sonic: Lost World was announced, and it looked like THE Sonic game. I tried out the demo for the 3DS version, and I loved it, so I was chomping at the bit until I could get my hands on the full game and now I regret it.

 Sonic Lost World is 3-D Sonic meets Mario Galaxy, kinda. A few levels play a bit with gravity and what have you, but for the most part, it's just another Sonic game in which you gotta go fast. Kinda. The game is divided into 7 worlds, with 3 Acts and a boss each. Sonic has a lot of abilities, too many in my opinion. There's the jump and the homing attack, by pressing jump again close to an enemy, a reticule will appear over them signifying the homing attack will land, as well as a 'Somersault Kick', which is a projectile, by pressing the Spin Dash button while on air. This is an unnecessary complexity, because some enemies can only be safely dispatched by hitting them with the somersault kick and then the jumping attack. To be honest, some enemies don't show clear signs that suggest a straight homing attack wouldn't work, which made it extra annoying. You can also perform a 'super' Homing attack by targeting an enemy for a short while, which is the only way to defeat a few enemies. It's also super boring in a game about speed having to wait for the lock-on to charge up to level 3. On the ground, The X and Y button perform the Spin Dash, Sonic's land attack

 But we ain't done yet. The only way for Sonic to reach max speed is by holding down R, which I think was a good idea, since you may not always want Sonic to be at his full, slippery speed. Plus, if you approach a wall at high speed, Sonic will run on it. If you approach walls that are in front of the camera, Sonic will run upwards, if you approach walls that aren't facing the camera, Sonic will run alongside them. It's incredibly confusing at first, so you'll try to scale walls on their sides or try to wall run on others because this restriction makes no sense. But we aren't done yet. Press X or Y during a wall run/climb to get a boost of speed, or press A/B to jump to the opposite side. I think in another game these mechanics could've worked, but Sonic is too slippery and too sticky. It's easy to accidentally run on walls you didn't mean to and accidentally kill yourself. He is so slippery that it's also easy to fall off platforms while you try to reposition yourself. Plus, it's easy to also hurt yourself by trying to perform a homing attack on the wrong enemy, which is easy to do if you're trying to go fast. But trying to go fast will also get Sonic to run on things you didn't mean to or fall to his death because he is just that slippery. In other words, I hated the controls in the game, and they made the game incredibly frustrating. It's not just that, the homing attack can kill you too. Y'see, Sonic can target up to three enemies and/or objects. Sometimes the game might have you cross a jump by doing homing attacks on flying enemies.... but Sonic might decide to home into an enemy or object behind you, that you didn't know was targeted, and plummet him to his death.

 The game has challenging levels, for all the wrong reasons, and easy bosses. And here's the thing, if you die a lot the game will drop help capsules to help you, such as a flying machine or a friendly UFO that shoots at enemies. If you tried to avoid them, considering them cheating, like I did, it's possible that one of those homing attacks will home in on the flying enemy.... AND THEN HOME YOU BACK INTO THE CAPSULE YOU TRIED TO AVOID, often times killing you. It's so poorly designed, and the appearance help capsules should have been optional. Luckily, it seems like the developers knew that you'd unfairly lose a ton of lives, so it's very easy to amass a surplus of lives. While I died a lot, I finished the game with 60 lives to spare. As for easy bosses, let's just say that Act 6's boss can be beaten with one attack. ONE ATTACK.

 Finally, rounding up Sonic's arsenal are the Color wisps from Sonic Colors. Indigo turns you into a slippery asteroid that turns enemies and objects into debris rings around it, Yellow turns Sonic into an unwieldy drill that works better in water, Ivory turns Sonic into a slippery electric bolt that can zap into electric cables or swing from... floating batteries, Grey is the worst because it turns you into a hard-to-control iron ball which can only be move with... gyroscopic controls and, lastly, the Red turns Sonic into a ball of fire, and this final one is unlocked in one of the final levels. You can store these Wisps when you find them, but most of the time you are supposed to use them right where you found them.

 As for the levels themselves, they come in three varieties: 2-D Sidescrolling stages, open 3-D stages and... 3-D stages in which you are supposed to be moving forward. The difference between the last two is that in the first type you can reposition the camera behind Sonic by pressing L. Why they didn't stick to just one type of 3-D stage is beyond me. I've heard that many people complained about the stages being too long or gimmicky, but they didn't feel that long, and I was so busy getting frustrated with the controls that I didn't really cared about the gimmicks. What's more, I think these light puzzle-like gimmicks, such as find the right teleporter, were a decent breather from having to deal with platforming while struggling to control Sonic. That said, there was this one annoying level near the end that had you riding rockets... using gyroscopic controls. There's also a boss that requires gyroscopic controls, which once again, is very dumb for a HANDHELD game, am I supposed to stand up and turn in circles while riding a bus? Nah, just close the 3DS and cut your gaming session short, there's nothing you can do since you can't turn them off. Bonus stages, in which you collect the Chaos Gems, also require gyroscopic controls, but these were actually quite fun.

 I wanted to like Sonic: Lost World, I did, but controlling Sonic is a mess due to how slippery he is. There are so many poor design choices, like the homing attack being able to home in on things behind you or how the wall running/climbing works. The worst part about this whole ordeal... is that I'd still be willing to give the home console version og Lost World a chance if it ever gets ported to Switch... or if I ever get a Wii-U.
 3.0 out of 10

Review #831: The Legend of Spyro - Dawn of the Dragon

 The Legend of Spyro: The Two Towers.

 I never did finish this one, huh? I started The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon as soon as I finished the previous one, but for one reason or another I never got out of the first stage. Well... it's another beat'em up with unsatisfying combat, but, hey, at least it's better than the second entry!

 The game picks up 3 years after Spyro and Cinder got trapped in the crystals, and the game begins with both heroes getting freed from their cages. Malefor, the big bad that first forced Cinder to do his bidding is wrecking havoc, so Spyro, Cinder and Sparx set out to gather old allies and new friends to fight Malefor's impending threat. The series has been unjustly compared to The Lord of the Rings, but boy, this has a section in which you must defend a citadel wall from enemies and their siege towers, not unlike the Two Towers, it even gets a 'Gondor Calls for Aid' moment. The story overall is alright, and we get a conclusion to the story, which is neat. I really liked Cinder before, and her promotion to playable was a welcome addition, what's more, you can play the entire game in two players, thanks to it's drop in-drop out co-op mode. If you are playing by yourself, you can swap dragons with L2, and the AI will play as the other character, they are pretty much useless but they won't take any damage.

 Alright, so here's the thing... since the first game the developers, although this one was developed by a different team, have made it clear that these games are beat'em ups and combat IS the focus. However, also since the very first game, the series has struggled with how repetitive combat is. That hasn't changed. Square are your weak attacks, triangle are strong attacks, circle is a grab. You can produce different combos, even aerial combos, with square and triangle. Each dragon has access to four elemental breaths(Fire, Earth, Ice and Thunder for Spyro, Venom, Shadow, Cyclone and... um, 'Siren's scream' for Cinder) that can be leveled up with blue gems dropped from enemies, each breath has two attacks, one with R1 and one with R2, however, using your breath consumes energy so you can't use it willy nily. Lastly, there's a new Fury gauge, once full you press weak and strong attack to turn super powerful for a few seconds. The problem is still the fact that you don't get many different moves, and the ones that you do get are just as weak, for you see, enemies can soak up tonnes of damage, even fully powered up breaths will struggle to defeat the tougher enemies. So not only is the combat repetitive, it also takes a long while to finish off enemies. Pro-tip, Cinder's Shadow element R2 attack is unblockable and deals ungodly amounts of damage, level up that one and stick with it.

 This game introduces equipment into the mix, and whatever you equip is reflected on the character models, which is pretty cool to be honest. Each character has 9 pieces of equipment to find: Helmet, Body armor and bracelets, each one having a different attribute or buff. Enhancing your Health and Breath energy pools is done by finding big Red and Green gems. It felt like this game added more puzzle elements into the mix, which aren't hard to figure out but are somewhat welcome. The game is still quite linear, but there are larger areas to explore, which is also why flying is a thing now. I never quite understood how it works, sometimes you dragons will fly upwards because I don't know, and other times they wouldn't. I didn't get how it works, so it was kinda iffy, but for what it's worth, you'll be able to get where you want to get by flying, it's like the know when to fly up. On the other hand, there are a few new climbing techniques, such as wall running that aren't well explained. I struggled a lot at first until I understood how the game wanted me to interact with vines and walls, turns out you don't press circle to wall run, but rather, first you must jump against the wall and then press circle.

 The camera is horrible. How much you can turn it depends on where you are, because sometimes the game decides that you should stick with a somewhat fixed angle. And there's no targeting system, because that would make too much sense in a beat'em up that wishes it was Devil May Cry. Oh, and bosses can only be defeated with QTEs, because those are ALWAYS so much fun. The final nail in the game's coffin is its poor framerate, flying around could've been so much fun if only it didn't start stuttering like crazy.

 Here's the thing about Dawn of the Dragon, for as many flaws as it has... After the somewhat boring Two Towers rip-off scene I finally got used to the game and its shortcomings, so I started having a bit more fun with it. For as annoying as the framerate can get, the second level, which is set on an open field in which you must solve various puzzles was rather interesting, and the level set in the underground ruins, in which you must solve even more puzzles to collect four red rods in order to proceed was also rather fun. But here's the thing, the combat in the game falls short in every way possible, but when spaced out between moments in which you have to figure out what to do, a few times even needing to use your elemental breaths to proceed... it kinda works. And it has ambition, I'll give it that. There's this level in which you fly around a giant Titan, and you must go around its body blasting 12 Dark Crystals in order to beat it. You can't fly around it, no, only where the game decided not to place hidden walls. In some places you can fly lower than in other because reasons, and at times it can get quite frustrating because you've no idea where you should go or fly next. But as poorly executed as it was.... it's still a stage in which you fly around a giant monster in order to defeat it. For as cumbersome and dull as the wall siege scene is... it's still a freaking siege scene, y'know? The game had decent, interesting ideas, but it fell short in most regards.

 The Legend of Spyro trilogy was disappointing. I know gamers hate change, but I'm usually willing to come into reboots and remakes with an open mind, and I did when it came to this one. I don't hate these games, I really don't, but the first game failed to impress even though I was left optimistic. But the next couple of games refused to address issues that plagued its basic gameplay, making small tweaks and changes that didn't amount to anything. And this is it. It's over, and it ends with a whimper, but at least it was better than the second game.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #830: Avatar the Last Airbender - The Burning Earth

 I never get tired of this game's cover.

 The DS version of Avatar the Last Airbender was quite a surprise, it was a RPG, complete with levels and sidequests. It had its fair share of flaws, but it was good. For the next installment, Avatar The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth, they pretty much followed the previous game's formula, making some tweaks here and there.

 This time around, The Burning Earth follows the plot from the series' second season. No, I have not seen Avatar yet, but I've seen clips and I could recognize some scenes from the show recreated in here. This plot follows Aang's search for a master to teach him how to Earth Bend, which inevitably means he and his pals, Sokka and Katara, meet with Toph, a blind girl that packs one mean rock throw Of course, things ain't that simple, so you know that you'll have to do battle with the Fire Nation again. I don't know how much attention Zuko and his uncle got during this season, but they barely get any scenes in this game. While the previous game took about 11-12 hours to complete, this one took me about 5, and I took my time with it.

 Just like before, when you aren't walking around towns and talking with NPCs you'll be fighting, and battles take place in real time. While you had a full four-man party in the previous game, this time around the game decides your 2-man cell for you. And once again, Sokka and Katara are boring to play as, Sokka has the highest attack power, but his normal attack is a boring club bash, while Katara gets a horrid water-whip thing that overexposes her, to the point that I got so bored when the game forced me on a Katara-only segment. Aang got his 3-hit combo reduced to 2 hits, and Toph also gets a two hit combo, making them the more interesting characters to play as. The 'magic'/bending system has been tweaked, now every character gets a four tier gauge that fills over time, as well as four special attacks they can use. These felt rather weak, and a few felt too situational, but they grant you a few invincibility frames so, sometimes, they were a bit useful. While you have less companions to fight with, they seem to be smarter, not once did my allies die during my playthrough... although they still refuse to use their special moves!

 The game has been made easier, which is a good thing. Finally we get inns where you can rest and heal your HP. Nearly every enemy, except for bugs, you defeat will drop money or a healing items, so you'll be overflowing with those by the end of the game. The herb system is gone, which is a blessing since that was one of the causes for healing item starvation. That said, during the boss fight against Toph.... she managed to land a special move on me, and she kept repeating it over and over again, giving me no chance to get on my feet and recover.

 While the game doesn't tell you, once you reach the 7th and final chapter, you are free to return to any previous stage, as well as go to any inn and choose who will join Aang. While the game is light on side content, the very first map has a rock that only Toph can break, a character that joins on the fourth chapter, and hidden behind it is... a cabbage. I haven't watched the series, so I don't know if there's a special meaning behind it, but getting every character's fourth and final move requires finding all 20 hidden cabbages. Yeah, I've got nothing. Cabbages.

 The game is alright. I think I liked the previous game a bit more because it was a pleasant surprise, but while I think this game did many valuable improvements I just didn't like it as much. Maybe I was a bit overly enthusiastic about the first game. Maybe, as I said before, the surprise of getting a decent RPG out of the franchise colored my outlook a bit more positive. Maybe the previous game had some je ne se quois that this game lacked. Whichever the case, I found this game a bit on the dull side. It's not bad, but it's just very uneventful.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #829: R - Racing Evolution

 Oh, it's the weird one...

 R: Racing Evolution was... definitely not what I was expecting. After a successful string of very Arcadey racers Namco decided to do something completely different and churn out a racing sim out of the Ridge Racer series. The sexy female mascot and the brilliant techno music are here, but gone is its trademark drifting style, in we have a lot of stats, like suspension and shock resistance, as well  as more mundane racing mechanics and even a few rally tracks.

 If there's something you won't be left wanting for here is content. Let's start with modes: Racing Life, a 14-chapter story mode in which you follow Rena's career, from driving a hospital van to professional racer. It has voiced cutscenes, which is incredible. You can also play Event Challenges, in which you can use your amassed RPs to purchase cars, upgrade cars and/or purchase multiple race events to partake in. And there are a TON of events. There's also Arcade(Think of it as VS CPU), VS Player and Time attack. To top that off, we get 11 tracks plus reverse versions of a few of those, and do keep in mind that not all tracks are for racing, some are for rally driving. I find it so hilarious that the first time we get a more than decent amount of content... is for the game that plays like Ridge Racer the least! I mean, the story mode is very cheesy, it even has a behind-the-scenes evil racing group conspiracy, but it's still a welcome addition, and there are so many events you can participate that it's not even funny.

 Namco knew that such a stark genre shift could throw fans a curve, so the game adds an optional Break Assist feature to help you with your curves, which now must be taken at slower speeds rather than using the series trademark drifting mechanics. The game also has three difficulty setting, and as the world's worst racing game player I had no trouble beating the story mode on the easiest setting. That said, while I had a brief stint with Gran Turismo 2 when I was younger, simulators were never my thing and the game failed to interest me as much as the previous Ridge Racers. The story mode has an interesting idea with the pressure mechanic, basically, drive near an opponent, swerving left to right, to fill their pressure gauge, once full they'll 'break' and drive off-road on the next curve, allowing you to easily pass them by. It's an interesting idea, but not enough to entrance me as much as getting the drifting right in previous games.

 I'm glad that this game exists. I love the fact that Namco tried something different with their formula, but... I'm sure I'm not the only Ridge Racer fan that it failed to convert. I had more fun with Le Mann's 24 hours way back when than with this one. Still, it IS a quality game, and I'm sure that people that enjoy Ridge Racer and racing simulators might get a kick out of it, but as far as I'm concerned... I'd rather get back into the real Ridge Racer.
 6.0 out of 10