Game #876: Naruto - Clash of Ninja

  They had to start somewhere, right?

 In what feels like a lifetime ago I played Naruto Shippuden Clash of Ninja Revolution 3, and it was really good. It was touted as a anime fighter that could also be played competitively, and while your mileage may vary on that one, it was certainly a fun one... even if it played exactly like every single other fighting game 8ing ever made. Seeing how it was the last Clash of Ninja game ever released, at least outside of Japan, I decided to go back to their first entry, Naruto: Clash of Ninja.

 Well, the good news is that the game plays well. You have two attack buttons, and characters have pre-set combo strings using those buttons, sometimes needing to add a directional tap alongside the button press. There's also a grab, a super move and a substitution dodge that consumes chakra. It's fine, it feels just like Bleach Heat the Soul, Fullmetal Alchemist Dream Carnival or Bloody Roar. As far as mechanics goes, it's more than serviceable, and characters feel different enough... even if most of them have a counter move.

 The problem is... there's no content in the game. There are only 8 different characters(10 if you count alternate forms) and barely any content. There's a 40 minute story mode that features a truncated bit of story, from Naruto becoming a Ninja 'till the start of the Ninja trials. It's just an excuse to have you, as Naruto, fight the other seven characters: Iruka, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, Haku, Zabuza and... Rock Lee. If anything, I'm glad we have a playable Iruka that has an actual moveset and isn't a joke character. He also fights with a giant Shuriken, almost, as if he was meant to be Mizuki... Which, honestly, would've made more sense even for the story mode, since Iruka never tests Naruto in physical combat!

 Alright, so how do they fix having no content? By making unlocking characters as annoying as possible. In order to unlock One-Tailed Naruto and Curse-Mark Sasuke, first you have to beat the Arcade mode as everyone, which unlocks Sound Test. Now you have to beat Arcade mode as everyone, AGAIN. I did it once, and the game was fun, but, no thanks, I'd rather spend my time doing other things.

 Naruto: Clash of Ninja is alright. If the game was analyzed in a vacuum, sure, it's fun, plays well, the whole gamut. But... the roster is pathetic, the amount of content in the game is pathetic, the fact is, you can get Naruto games that play exactly like this one but have tons more characters, making this entry a fun curiosity at its best.

 4.0 

Game #875: The Simpsons Game

  Well, the beat'em up genre worked before, so...

 The Simpsons Game is a weird one. It has a lot of really strong points and neat ideas, but it's also very clunky and boring. In a few areas it actually excels over every other Simpsons game I've played, a list that includes the Arcade Game and Hit 'n Run, but the fact that it falls behind in a few key areas means that this one is just for the fans.

 The best part about the game is that it has about 40 minutes of all new original animation made exclusively for the game, and they cut no corners, this footage is as crisp and well animated as any episode from the show. Your mileage may vary on the quality of modern Simpson's scripts, but the script was written by the same staff from the show, and they made it very self-referential, as the Simpsons know that they are in a videogame. I won't lie, some of the references got a few chuckles out of me, as the game loves lampooning other videogames, even Maxis' own Will Wright makes an appearance! The game gets an A+ on effort alone.

 While the game is divided into different stages, each one requiring a different pair of Simpsons, you get a fairly drab recreation of Springfield. What makes it so lackluster is that there's nothing interesting to do in the city. Sure, you can try to find all 300 collectibles, 75 per family member, but they really aren't worth it. Still, they went the extra mile and modelled a lot of the interiors, even the entire Simpsons house, however, as accurate and amusing these interiors are.... they are filled with invisible walls that makes exploring them very dull. It's almost annoying how much effort they probably spent only to get some very awkward movement inside them. And there's not reason as to why HOUSE INTERIORS should have friggin' invisible walls, it makes no sense. Why try so hard but make it so lame?

 Here's the truth of the matter, at its core, this game is a very basic beat'em up. You move from end to end, mashing the Square-Square-Triangle combo while solving some sometimes annoying puzzles. Each character has different abilities, Homer can turn into a giant ball of fat(Because he is fat, get it?) and roll around, or inhale helium and turn into a balloon. Bart can shoot with his slingshot or glide as Bart-man. Lisa can find a few select spots where she can meditate to interact with a few objects, lifting them in order to create bridges or activate bridges. Marge can rile up mobs and direct them to destroy or build stuff.

 Despite all these abilities, 70% of the game will be spent mowing down enemies with the same, unsatisfying square-square-triangle combo. Often times against either endless waves of enemies or trying to clear a way towards the enemy generator. Because having an enemy generator makes so much sense in a Simpsons videogame. It's super easy too, despite how dumb your AI partner is. The game has 2-Player co-op, which is probably a BIT more fun. Even if a character dies, which your CPU ally will probably do a lot, all you have to do is run around until they wake up, with the cherry on top being that health regenerates all the time, so you even get healed while you wait for your partner to wake up.

 Lisa and Marge get the least play time, and it makes sense, because Marge is boring and List just as much. It's ridiculous how much playtime Bart and Homer are given in comparison, y'know, heck, even Lisa gets more stages than poor Marge. Marge doesn't even get a paired stage with Bart. And it makes sense, between all gimmicks, hers is the worst. But don't worry, they gave Lisa some very annoying segments. Segments in which you have to attempt to meditate to move stuff while endless waves of enemies try to interrupt you, as your AI partner fails to protect you. Honestly, who thought that was fun?

 And to compliment the mostly boring gameplay, we get a wonky camera that sometimes fixes itself on an awkward angle. Moving around also feels like it's slightly slower than it should.

 As far as fanservice goes, this is the best Simpsons game by far. The new footage is a brilliant addition, and the script feels like something that could've come out of the show's modern era. And yet, as much as it succeeds on its window decorations... it fails to provide a fun experience. Beat'em ups are fun, I like beat'em ups, but combat in this game is so unsatisfying, and the 'exclusive abilities' each Simpson gets fail to make for fun objectives and goals. Still, I'll give them this, I think enduring through the game could be a worthwhile experience for funs of the show.

4.0

Game #874: The Evil Within(Playstation 4)

 Slightly buggier than I remember... 

 The Evil Within is one of my favorite survival horror games of all time. Back when I played it, it felt like Resident Evil 4's real sequel, and I loved how it merged Resident Evil's gameplay with a more Silent Hill-ish brand of horror. On this second playthrough I'm willing to admit that they didn't quite nail SH's horror, but it's still really good.

 Since I was replaying this game, I opted for the easiest difficulty setting, and I think it was quite alright. Ammo is still a bit scarce, which will force you to juggle your weapons, but the game isn't overly hard. That said, I think that the game is a bit too nasty with bosses and their one-hit kills. Pretty much every big boss has at least one way of killing you if they touch you, which feels a bit unfair. The environment too is filled with traps, some that could kill you if they touch you, but they weren't too bad. The issue with one-hit kills is that the game must load again after you die, and sitting through loading screens is the worst punishment out there. Luckily, the game loads much, much faster on PS4 than on PS3, which made dying so much bit more palatable.

 The PS4 version looks pretty similar to the PS3 port, but it has an entirely different lightning system. Your mileage may vary on this, I saw some comparisons in Youtube, and I think I liked the more artificial lightning on the previous-gen ports, rather than the one in this game. On the other hand, I had the weirdest glitches. The game would return me to the Start Screen midway through loading Chapter 9. This happened like NINE times until I close the game and booted it up again.... and then it happened again on Chapter 10. Absolutely ridiculous, particularly because I don't remember the PS3 version having these bugs.

 My biggest pet peeve is that the overall performance of the game isn't such a big step up on this version. It plays well enough, but since this was one videogame-console generation above I expected at least a fixed 30 FPS performance, but it can still get jumpy at times, mostly on the latter city chapters. I must insist, the game is very playable, and so it was on PS3, but I expected something better out of more powerful hardware.

 As per usual, I always want to play my games as they are out of the box, without patches, because a game should work without needing a patch. Four years ago, on one poorly written entry, I mentioned how these big, black bars didn't bother me.... and they still didn't. To be fair, unlike the last time, I did notice them plenty of times, and I'm sure the game would've looked even better without them, but they weren't bothersome.

 What really matters is... that this game really is one of my favorites. I love how it plays. I love how it looks. I love the setting and how its premise allows for such varied locales. Heck, I love how long this game in and how many different set pieces it has. I love how Sebastian looks, vests are cool, and even if he has little personality... he looks really cool, and what matters in a HORROR game is the horror itself, and the game really excels there too. Man, the upgrade system is glorious, I love collecting green gel which I can then use to enhance my survivability with more health, more stamina, higher ammo caps, or maybe spend that currency to enhance my proficiency with my weapons. In short, I pretty much love everything about this game, except maybe how much it loves to one-hit kill you. Playing this again really proves how, despite Evil Within 2 being a much better game on a technical level, it really failed to capture what made this one so special. Shinji Mikami should've returned to direct the sequel, and what's more, people didn't really understand what a gem they had in their hands when they played this game.

 9.0

Game #873: Dante's Inferno

  Talk about edgy reimaginings....

 Remember that book, y'know, the one which nobody ever read past the first part, and whoever says otherwise is lying, the Divine Comedy? Well, what about making a God of War clone out of it? Lo and behold, Dante's Inferno, specifically designed to make Dante Alighieri turn in his grave. Plus, the game is demonic as sin, which made it a prime candidate for this year's Halloween Season.

 Yeah.... I don't think using the Divine Comedy license was a good idea. I mean, they could've used the same characters with other names, while keeping the script intact, and just call it a homage, because this has jack all to do with the original book. What's more, they turned Dante into a righteous prick, which is a bit awkward considering he was a real person.

 What I really appreciated about the game is that it was a God of War clone through and through, and a really good one at that, not only proving even further how versatile Visceral Games were, but also being an enticing alternative for Xbox fans curious about God of War.

 Controls and gameplay is very simple, and executing your moves is fairly easy. The right analog stick dodges, Square and Triangle are your basic Scythe attacks and Circle is your 'I win Button', the Holy attacks. You can purchase new moves, most of them executed by holding L2(block) and pressing any of the face buttons, and sometimes, holding L2 and pressing another face button as soon as your last L2 attack finished. You've got aerial combos, a launcher by holding down triangle, unnecessary and obnoxious QTEs and even parrying, everything that makes GoW good is here and it works well. If anything, it's a bit disappointing that Dante doesn't get any new weapons....

 ....but you do get a few nifty ways to customize your Dante. For instance, you can equip up to four different Spells, which are obtained through your skill trees or just by progressing through the game, and you can also equip Relics(2 at first, but the skill trees hold 2 more optional slots) to get some passive bonuses. From garbage such as bonus Holy/Unholy XP to more interesting abilities such as some super armored-attack frames or even undodgeable scythe attacks.

 The game revels in its edginess. Dante wears a torn cloth in the shape of a cross he sew himself to his chest to remind him of his sins. Beatrice showcases her beasts proudly, and pretty much every female in the game bare their breasts. Oh, and a few fat, rotten, nasty guys too! Oh, and Dante's main weapon, his scythe? It used to be Death's, but Dante murdered Death itself with its own scythe. Oh, and Lucifer's penis is a thing. Words can't explain just how edgy this game is... for good or bad.

 Back when the game first released I went out of my way to avoid it. Every review, every bit of footage, heck, even when I played a bit at a friend's house.... I thought the game lacked environmental variety. It takes places inside Hell after all. But thinking like that was a disservice to the game, for the developers managed to make each circle of hell look different enough.

 The circle button produces Dante's ranged Cross combo attack. It starts off as a single projectile, but you can upgrade it into a 3-hit combo or a 5-hit combo. This thing, at least on the Normal difficulty setting, makes mincemeat out of pretty much 90% of your enemies. It's a bit less useful during boss fights, but it's a bit silly how useful this weapon is. Particularly because enemies are supposed to have different weakness, either to Holy(Circle) or UnHoly(Scythe) attacks, but while you may come across enemies that can power through your scythe, your cross is good every time, all the time.

 The difficulty is a bit uneven. The game itself is pretty easy, but a few bosses may prove tough roadblocks, even when you've learned their gimmicks. On the other hand, while battling basic enemies isn't hard, I feel like too many enemies have too much super armor and can all too easily interrupt your combos with their shields. Or just, y'know, spam your circle attack and watch everyone go down in a shower of souls(XP). There were a few puzzles that didn't involve combat that really got my noggin' joggin'.

 85% of the game is super enjoyable, but the 8th circle was a very lame cop-out. Basically, it's a collection of about 8 challenge rooms. No interesting vistas, and very basic, to the point of boring, platforming to get onto each challenge platform. The 9th, and final, circle, starts off with a battle on top of an icy platform from which you can slide off, and alongside your enemies you also have to deal with a giant who'll periodically try to blow you away. I died SO many times on this part, because it's so unfairly tough. You can fall off by sliding after pulling off a parry, you can slide off because you initiated a finished and the giant decided to blow, and you can simply slide off because you're getting frustrated, making you clumsier which means enemies could land a lucky hit in and throw you off the platform. Ridiculous.

 Despite having a few boring and, in my opinion, poorly designed segments near the end of the game, the game is really good, and very enjoyable too. I think there was potential in the engine, and this could've been a really good starting point... of only EA didn't have to be EA and shut them down. As simple as giving Dante at least one alternate weapon, adding more combos, the potential for something amazing was there.

 7.5

Game #872: Until Dawn

 No celebrities were harmed in the making of this video game. But I'm sure they tried!

 It's no secret that I hated it when videogames started to turn into movies, when they started sacrificing gameplay for cinematics. Until Dawn is a QTE paradise that tries to be a Hollywood slasher flick and even got a few famous actors(Hayden Panettiere, Rami Malek), and their likenesses, to play some characters. It's one of those games that goes against everything I like in a game, yet managed keep me invested.

 Throughout the game you'll play as 8 different teenagers, 4 boys and 4 girls, who find themselves harrassed by a mysterious psycho while trying to party on a secluded mansion on top of a mountain... during a snowstorm. It has some slasher elements, some supernatural elements, jumpscares and all the cheesy dialogue you could hope for. The story itself is alright and the dialogue is pretty bad, usually in a good way, although a few of the quips and one liners felt TOO out of place, even if they were going for pure cheese.

 The fun part about the game is how many decisions you can make. Some will affect how characters treat each other, and some choices will have a bigger impact on the story than others. Most characters have quite a few scenarios that could lead to their deaths if you're not careful. It is entirely possible to have all 8 characters die, although, on the flip side, all 8 characters could survive if you make the right choices and don't mess up the QTEs. While they claimed that the game has about 100 endings, that's not entirely true, what they mean is that there are a ton of variations to the ending depending on some of your choices and which characters survived, factors that change what the survivors, if any, have to say at the end.

 My biggest issue with the story itself is how not every character gets equal screen time. Mike, who seems like a side character, gets the longest segments, and in my opinion, some of the most important ones. Sam, played by Hayden, seemed like the protagonist, but she is behind Mike and shares as much screen time and importance to the plot as Chris. I can't even remember the name of the fourth guy, the one that isn't played by Rami Malek, because he gets so little screen time. And sure, some characters' limelight could get turned off early if they died, but still, there's no reason as to why it's so uneven even in the best case scenario in which everyone survived.

 So, here is how the game works:

5% of the time you'll have to stay still in order to 'hide'.

10% of the time you'll be picking between two choices(Although, sometimes, doing nothing is a choice).

10% of the time you'll be pressing QTEs to survive.

75% percent of the time you'll be slowly walking from A to B

 That's the game in a nutshell, a lot of very sloppy walking around. You can hold L1 to walk faster, but it's still pretty slow. To be fair, you can explore around, if you wish, in order to find hints as to what is going on, and, in some cases, discovering some evidence may alter the way the story proceeds. You can also find Guidance Totems that will 'hint' of events to come. They are too vague to be of any help, and some of them might even work against you(Turns out not keeping the flare gun was a mistake), so just collect them for completion's sake, but don't worry about them.

 The game was made with Playstation's Move(Remember that Wii-mote knock-off?) in mind, so there are quite a few motion inputs. Thankfully, you can turn most motion controls off, pretty much anything that isn't 'keep joystick still to survive'. Using button prompts means you'll be using the R2 trigger a whole lot in order to grab objects you may come around, and then using the right analog stick to turn it around.

 Truth: The gameplay is an absolute bore. But, on the flip side, I think the game offers an interesting premise. There's this whole Butterfly-Effect motif going on, and so the game will warn you every time you made a choice(Or sometimes the consequence of failing a QTE) that will make a significant change in the future. This also makes it easier in future playthroughs to know a few variables you can play with. Mind you, the brunt of the story never changes, how characters get divided never changes(except if someone is missing because they died) but there are some fun variations in how things play out, heck, some characters could even end up as a couple if you play things right, to make your choices interesting. Oh, and the auto-save is pretty nasty, so if you mess up there's no going back.

 Until Dawn is like a decent slasher movie, not very memorable, not something to write home about, but a fun time nonetheless, and it can be fun even on repeat watches, or in this case, playthroughs. And in this case, you've got the incentive to, since things might not even play exactly like they did before!

 7.0

Game #871: The Sinking City

 More Cthulhu, more problems.

 A detective with a mysterious past and an ominous part to play in the fate of the world? A focus on a fishing city? A sanity meter? Decisions that slightly change how you go through a chapter? If the game wasn't titled The Sinking City I'd might very well think it's The Call of Cthulhu. But there's a major difference between games, while CoC was a very linear affair, TSK went for an open world design, to mixed results.

 Most of the game is a very basic third-person affair. Combat is an absolute clunkfest, you have little ammo(Even when fully levelled up) and Charles Reed, the hero, is as nimble as a rock. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had to lower down the difficulty, sue me, at least the game became a bit more tolerable. On the flipside, I didn't realize that I was making it hard for myself, as I kept revisiting a house with a giant enemy just because I didn't realize I had completed the quest, so I kept returning with very limited ammo. Plus, took me a while to realize that enemies don't take damage when they are in their hitstun animation, so conserve your ammo! Still, the game becomes easier when you realize that your melee attack is very reliable on everything but the largest monsters. Plus, there are pretty much no bosses, the only ones I can think of where  a giant watery-mouth thing you just shoot at until it dies, and the other is an optional witch-thing you can melee to death. 

 The game received a lot of praise for how they worked the detective angle, but I don't really agree with it. Whenever you reach a 'crime scene' or a 'mystery scene', you have to go around the house, through every floor looking for every bit of evidence to interact with it. Finding the necessary evidence isn't too bad, usually, but if you want the bonus experience you need to find every single piece. And that can almost turn into a pixel hunt. It's so annoying when you missed that single poster that didn't bring up the interact prompt and you go up and down through the house over and over again.

 People also liked having no automatic map prompts. Instead, you have to read the clues and make your own markers. Honestly? It's just a waste of time. Maybe it's because I was playing on the Easy investigator difficulty, but every clue laid the exact streets pretty clearly, so it was a matter of remembering the name of the two-three streets when the map appeared on the screen. And if I didn't remember? Screw me, back to the clue and hope my short-term memory doesn't fail me. The Archive clues are the worst. Sometimes the clue will mention 'news', 'interviews' or stuff like that. In those cases you have to decide to either visit The Police records, the Hospital Records, the local news records or the University Library records. Once you get there, you have to pick the three correct criteria for the next clue to appear. Not gonna lie, I searched online for an Archive guide and never looked back. I think I can almost understand why some people find it immersive, but I found it annoying. Heck, the final chapter's clues are pretty much impossible to figure out the criteria for on your own. Or maybe I'm just dumb.

 That said, I liked the Mind Palace element of the Detective features, basically, you can mix clues to turn them into deductions, which felt pretty neat.

 There's a crafting element to the game, you collect scavenge and you can turn into bullets and healing items. Nothing to write home about, and adds nothing to the game, but hey, it's there. Surprisingly, you can also level up. You obtain experience points by killing monsters or solving cases, which you can then use to upgrade Charles' abilities. These abilities are pretty lackluster, such as extra health, stronger attacks, higher ammo capacity or a chance not to use resources when crafting items.

 The open world design was a mistake. They didn't have the budget for something so ambitious. The city, on the outside, is quite good looking, I'll give it that, the partly sunken city looks damp and desolate, and the meandering Innsmouther immigrants as well as the locals make for an interesting atmosphere. Heck, having to use a boat to traverse the sunken parts of the city was an engaging idea, even though it controlled a bit poorly. In more than a few ways, it reminded me of Silent Hill Downpour, which I really liked(Sue me). However, they didn't have the budget, so there are about 5-6 house interiors that get recycled entirely, and sometimes partly, over and over again. It's almost ridiculous. Don't even let me get started on the technical issues, it's not unusual to run into parts of the environment that haven't loaded yet, so the game will abruptly cut to a black loading screen. Heck, every time you are going to enter a house the game will have to enter a black loading screen. Every time I brought up the map it felt like the game was about to crash. I can respect ambition, but in this case it pretty much sunk the game.

 Besides the technical issues, this large scope makes the game feel bloated. This is how every single part of the game plays, be it the main story cases or the side cases you can find: 

Step 1) Read the clue, if it mentions the streets place it on the map, otherwise go to right archive and get the clue so that you pinpoint the location through the map.

Step 2) Get to the right location and find the house you can go in(Turn in your magical Detective Eye and spot the door with an H on it).

Step 3) Kill the monsters if they spawn, otherwise...

Step 4) If it's one of the simple sidequests, just find and collect the right item. If it's a main story case or one of the better side-missions, just find all the clues, trigger the 'past visions' if necessary, and use the new clue you found to go back to step 1.

Step 5) Repeat until the mission ends.

That's the ENTIRE game.

 While I've been quite negative about the game, it does have a few things going for it. For instance, I must stress just how much I liked the game's atmosphere. The sunken city lives up to its name, and makes for a very attractive, in a creepy way, location. While most decisions you can take in the game are pretty superfluous, I liked having different outcomes to each chapter, and I liked how pretty much every single time there was no clear 'better' route. I insist, in the grand scheme of things they amount to nothing, but it's a very sweet nothing.

 The story, while nothing special, was pretty interesting too, it was an interesting romp, with interesting characters and even more interesting situations. A few of the horror elements, like pretty most monsters, didn't feel very Lovecraftian, but when they nailed a monster design, they nailed it.

 If you have time to spare and enjoy the Cthulhu mythos, The Sinking City might be worth a look, but I feel like most horror games you can find on the system are better than this one. I do feel like a more simple, and less ambitious approach would've worked much better under their budget constraints.  But, y'know, I don't really regret having spent my time with this game, as I think it's better moments made up for its shortcomings.

5.0

Game #870: Remothered - Tormented Fathers

  Clock Tower, made in Italy.

 It seems humble budgets is this Halloween season's theme, now with Remothered: Tormented Fathers. This one is a bit interesting, because it takes after the Clock Tower brand of horror, in which you assume control of a helpless women as she contends with Stalkers that want to murder her.

 The original game was Italian, which explains why sometimes the dialogue can feel weird. The story had a few bits that were hard to understand, but nothing in the game is as bad as the ending cutscene, in which our protagonist and the final Stalker decide to talk. It was so bad. It didn't make sense, and it was a very lame way to end an otherwise fine game.  Still, while the story is nothing to write home about, the game makes up for that with a fantastic horror atmosphere.

 The entire game takes place inside the Felton Mansion, it's creepy, it's dark and the sound design makes it even creepier. It really evoked the feelings of unease that Haunting Ground and Clock Tower 3(Sometimes...) pulled off so well. You get a flashlight, but you don't really need it, and if a Stalker is nearby he or she will instantly notice you, so I had it turned off throughout 95% of the game.

 Rosemary, our heroine, can carry up to three distraction items, which she can throw at an stalker to stun them or place them on the ground to distract them as well as carry a single Defense item, a one-time use item that can be used to prevent a killing blow from murdering you. However, that can only aid you in getting away from a Stalker, ideally, you'll be playing very stealthily in order to avoid detection as you gather key items in order to open up the secrets of the Mansion.

 The game is all about patience. While Rosemary can run, it will pretty much alert the current Stalker of your position, no matter where they are. This really threw me off at first, because it was beginning to annoy me just how frequently the first Stalker would be roaming close by. So... I willed myself to temper my impatience and spent the rest of the game walking or walking while crouching and then it became much more tolerable, only breaking into a run if I got spotted or if I wanted to make it to a save spot I knew was around the corner. 

 As a lower budget game, it does have a few technical issues. The game crashed one time, and I was victim to at least two black cutscenes. Apparently the latter one also happens on the PC version and can be avoided by not running out of breath before triggering the cutscene.

 Getting used to having to walk slowly throughout the game took a bit of getting used to, but it was not as annoying as I thought it'd be, and as soon as I did learned to love the game. Heck, I beat it in one seating, not only because it's a bit short, but because I was enjoying it so much. On the whole, this is the scariest game I've played so far this year, and I can't wait to play the sequel.

7.0