Quite some time ago, I was told by word of mouth that We Love Katamari was the best of the Katamari games. Such was why I held off on getting the other 3 games in the series that came out after it. Though I have not played Katamari Forever yet, of the original 4 games that all have original level content, I can say that We Love Katamari is definitely the best.
Musically I'm probably the least big fan of this one. It does have some new tracks, but it largely reuses music from the first game. My only gripe with that is that I don't really care for a good chunk of the new tracks, and some of my favorites from the first game (the original Katamari on the Rocks theme, Que Sara Sara) aren't present in this one :/ . It's a tiny gripe, but I gotta throw it out there as it was basically my only real problem with the game. The controls and physics have been cleaned up a TON from the first game. You don't get thrown around nearly as much, mostly due to better level design and not so much that you can't be thrown around (believe me, you can). You can also climb stairs and surfaces MUCH more easily than the first game (which was a major problem), and you also don't lose items nearly as easily when you bump into stuff. Cleaning up these mechanics really makes the game far more user friendly and fun to play, and very quickly puts it objectively head and shoulders above the original. Where this game really shines, even over it's console sequel, is level variety. There are quite a lot of stages, but more importantly, they all take place in very different locations. Not only are there just a lot of geographically unique locations that they take place in, but the item variety and mission variety is also good enough that even when you're technically somewhere that you've rolled in before, it doesn't feel like it (This is a problem that SUPER plagues the PSP game, but the 360 game to a lesser extent (which is the biggest shame, because the on-disc DLC really neuters that game's content level :/ )). Verdict: Highly recommended. If you're gonna play just one Katamari game of the original ones, play We Love Katamari. It has fantastic level variety and mechanics, and is really one of the best presentations you can experience the game's admittedly repetitive gameplay.
0 Comments
If you didn't know this game existed, and the first thing you thought when you saw there was a Katamari game on PSP was, "Well, how does that work? There's not two joysticks and the hardware is so weak!" You have a very accurate picture of how good an idea it was to make a Katamari game on PSP. I'm glad it came out domestically, because I would've felt like a total moron if I'd had to spend like $50 importing it.
Now, this game isn't completely worthless. The King's dialogue is still very silly and funny as ever (my personal favorite line being, "It should be "Us and Our Katamari"" because he always speaks using the royal "we.") The levels which are there are also designed fairly well, and the levels where you're doing unique missions (like collecting things with age or things with high monetary value) are also very well designed and fun. UNFORTUNATELY, the bulk of the "levels" is where this game really shows its flaws. This game has FAR too many stages for how much content it actually has. There are like 10+ normal stages (roll the katamari X big) in this game, but there is like 1 map per size level with each of those maps having like 2 or maybe 3 variations, if any at all, of where items are located on it. This makes the game get SUPER monotonous when it really doesn't try and hide that you're doing the same thing over and over. This also pads out the story of the game to like 6 or 7 hours, which is WAY longer than it needs to be. A lot of the levels end up being really long because instead of the normal katamari way, where you slowly get bigger and then new areas are revealed to you and you can roll up everything in them and do that process all over again, you're often given a series of consecutive stages to do, usually 3 or 4 five+ minute stages, to do in one level. And because the level variety is so small, this really doesn't help with the monotony. The hardware just really shows its limitations, especially when you reach a new size level to access a new part of the level. When you reach a new size that requires the game to load more objects, like in the first game, (I can't remember if the second game had that but the 360 one definitely didn't) basically all of the objects, save for the very tiniest ones that were out of your vision range, would still be there in the place you were just rolling. In this game, the object limit is so small, that basically the entire field you were just in is cleared of tinier objects, so there's no point in continuing to roll there. Hardware problems are also very present when you get to the stages where you're larger, because there's REALLY obvious and bad item pop-in. The tremendous length of the game is not helped by the BAD controls. The PSP doesn't have 2 joysticks, or even 2 joy-nubs, to replicate the traditional Katamari Damacy controls. As a result, you have to use the D-pad and the face buttons to control instead. This takes some getting used to just because of how far apart things like the face buttons are laid out and how things like the 180 degree quick-flip and the charge are differently mapped, but the bigger problem is that it just hurts to play. The center of the D-pad on the PSP is a sharp little fucker, and pressing your thumb into it for even 2 consecutive levels will really start to hurt your hands. I will say, though, that the load times aren't bad, though they are relatively frequent compared to the other games. The last thing about this worth mentioning, as with any Katamari game, is the music. Again, it's not bad, but not great. Almost the entire soundtrack is just the first game's music. There're a few new songs present, and they're usually good (especially the main theme), but there's not a whole new soundtrack like with a lot of the console releases. Verdict: Not recommended. Unless you're a HUGE Katamari Damacy fan like I am, there is no reason to play this game. I would go as far as to say that this game just shouldn't have been made. This is the first Katamari Damacy game where the original creator wasn't involved in the creation process at all, and it really shows. The development team was either just too unfamiliar with the series, and/or just too limited by the hardware and it just comes off that they really didn't know what made Katamari Damacy fun. Add in that most if not all of the best levels in this are probably in Katamari Forever, and this is a game you can very safely skip. I've really never considered myself a Resident Evil fan, as I played the first game a few years ago and didn't really care for it. Recently, however, I've really begun to rethink that stance, as the games after 3 completely revamp the series. This game is not perfect, but it is probably one of the best action-based horror games ever made.
I'm going to spend a very small amount of time on the story, because it's really not what you play a Resident Evil game for (in my opinion). It's pretty standard Resident Evil: There's some mysterious event, an agent is sent to deal with it, it turns out to be some crazy cult using disease for world dominaition/destruction/etc. The voice acting is fairly good, albeit a bit hammy at times, and that reflects on the story at large. It's science-fiction-y, it's action-y, and it's a good time. To me, complaining about a story that doesn't really make sense or isn't very well paced in a Resident Evil game is really a waste of breath (or keystrokes, in this case). The action is where the real meat of this game is. It isn't quite a traditional 3rd person shooter, but it takes the older RE formula and takes it in a direction more suited towards that. The C-stick doesn't aim. Instead, when you hold down R, you enter an aiming mode where the control-stick aims. When not in this aiming mode, the control stick moves you with tank controls. Reading "Tank controls" may be a turn off to some, but because you can do a quick 180 degree turn with holding down and pressing B, I never had any problems with mobility. The result is a system that's very tense and also very skill based. You HAVE to stand still to attack at all. This puts a heavy emphasis on keeping distance between you and your target, and keeping your shots precise. I never thought the game was terribly difficult. I'm fairly bad at console shooters, but even I didn't have much trouble with the boss fights. I found the final boss very easy, really, with the second to last boss really being the hardest. Ammo conservation is required, this being a survival horror game, but I had a TON of magnum and shotgun rounds left at the end of the game from being too conservative. Those handgun shots really count though, so save 'em! You can find money to use at the merchant as well, but you can only buy guns, gun upgrades, and healing items there, not ammo. The only part of the game that gave me any trouble were the QTE's. As a rule, I think QTE's usually make a game worse, but this game used them, usually, in ways that enhanced the experience. As opposed to a dedicated dodge button, when an attack that the game says can be dodged is about to hit you, a prompt comes up on screen to either press A and B or R and L, making you do an invincible animation to avoid the attack. These did get in the way at some points. Being that A also fires when you're in aim mode, if you have to dodge with A and B, the QTE takes precident for your action, so there would be times where I'd be trying to shoot a boss while he was about to move and the gun wouldn't fire because I'd be being prompted for a QTE. Additionally, there are some sections, one in particular, that relies on succeeding a succession of QTE's to avoid instant death, and I thought those were pretty wank. Their only saving grace is that the continue points are very forgiving, so only your death counter (and your patience) will suffer from those bits. Verdict: Highly recommended. When Nintendo Power ranked RE4 as their #1 Gamecube game in their 20th anniversary issue, I was frankly fairly dubious that a non-Nintendo game could top their platform, but my skepticism was clearly wrong. This is probably one of the best shooters and action games on the Gamecube, and it's a ton of fun that's totally worth playing in any of its ports if you don't wanna fork out 20 bucks for the Gamecube original. After Exhuminator played this a little while back and didn't really like it, I was prompted to replay to reconfirm how I felt about it. My prior opinion still stands: It is a solid, fun game that I really like. This is labeled as a repeat, although the last times I've played this game were in like 2004 when I rented it when it came out, then again in 2011 which is probably when I bought it, so it's been a while and I didn't really remember the bosses or maps well.
Wario World is primarily a mix between an action game and a platforming game. In terms of the platforming, it's a little of a mixed bag. There are only 8 levels, but each one is very long and can take a half an hour or more, especially if you want to find all of the goodies in it. The stages themselves don't often contain any seriously difficult platforming, at least until the later stages, but the main difficulty in the platforms comes from the challenge doors in each stage, as well as finding and collecting the cash and collectibles in each stage. These doors contain crystals which you'll need to open the door to the final boss, so you'll need to do at least a few in every stage. These challenge areas also often contain hint sprites (which give info about enemies and bosses, as well as affecting which ending you get) and statue pieces (collect all 8 in a stage for another half of a heart), so they're basically all worth at least attempting. The camera control is much more precise in these levels than in the main stages, with the challenge rooms having 360 degrees of viewing while the main stages have the camera at a more fixed angle. The camera is pretty good though generally though. There was only one time or two that I wished it could zoom out a bit more, but never anything egregious. In addition to the crystals, statue pieces and hint sprites, there are also treasure chests to collect in each stage which are mostly just for show. They unlock some Wario Ware mini games you can play on your GBA, but other than that, it's mostly just a 100%-ing thing. The last two times i went through this game, I 100%'d it, but this time I couldn't as there was one challenge room that totally stumped me in the final stage. In terms of action, there are 5 or so basic enemy types which are in every world, and then each stage usually has at least one kind of enemy and/or gate enemy specific to it (charging elephants in the circuis, flying shovels at the pyramids, Pea-hat wannabes in the garden, etc.). Wario is a big fat, bulky guy, and his moves reflect that. He smashes real quick with his fists, he can grapple to do pile-drivers or bowser-tail-spins, and he can groundpound, and he even has his charging dash from the Wario Land games. The charge dashing is especially fun, because occasionally you can use it to get around certain annoying enemies or skip certain platforming sections. Some of the later challenge rooms absolutely require the dash though, so it's good to try and get used to it at least a little. I feel it worth mentioning that Exhuminator expressed a lot of frustration at how pressing the B button punches, while holding it dashes (leading to falling off cliffs), but I never really experienced that as a problem. Chalk it up to play style I suppose, but it's not a problem I ever remember having, perhaps because I so mash the B button to punch dudes. I'd akin it to something like in Sonic Adventure 2, where light-dash as well as roll are on the B button: It's something that's annoying for some, and totally ignorable for others. Not nearly as bad as say how in Donkey Kong Country Returns, ducking while waggling blows a puff of air, while just waggling while walking rolls forward, which leads to a lot of deaths when trying to do that quickly for goodies. Though in Wario World, falling down pits isn't actually lethal, at least not in the traditional sense. It just puts you down into a realm where you can lose a bit of money if you get hit, but you try to get out as soon a possible. Money has a bit of a weird function in this game, as it usually does in Wario action games. Money is essentially extra health and extra lives in this game. You can occasionally find garlic (heals one heart) in boxes in the earlier stages, but sooner or later you'll more or less only be able to buy it consistently from the vendors located in each stage. Other than buying garlic, when you totally run out of health, you can pay an amount of gold to instantly respawn where you were, as opposed to completely restarting the stage. I finished the game with like 13k in gold, so money wasn't really a problem, but knowing early on that you can magnetize money to you with L helps in racking it up quickly and easily. One of the best features in the game, though, are the boss battles. There is a boss at the end of every stage, as well as a world boss after every 2nd stage, as well as a final boss, making 13 in total. They have a very good difficulty curve, it's not immediately always given to you on a platter how to defeat them, but it's always intuitive and never contrived. The bosses are definitely one of the most fun parts of the game. Verdict: Recommended. It isn't exactly Mario Sunshine 2 in terms of the dynamism of its platforming, but it isn't trying to be. Wario World is trying to be an actiony, platforming hunt for wealth, and it succeeds at that well. Treasure, the devloper, usually tries to make something a bit different, and that's what this is: Different, wacky, and fun. At the suggestion at ElkinFencer10, who I believe was the last person to post about this game on this thread, I played through the whole thing in one sitting, and it is a recommendation I shall pass on. Going in, I knew the story of the game was very centered around real horrors of war, but I really had no idea where it was going to go from there. Even in the spoiler section, I shall speak very minimally in terms of story, but I shall do slight references, so I implore anyone who even slightly thinks they'll play this game to not read the spoilers.
First, from a gameplay perspective, the game is nothing new. You could just call this "Gears of War with Good Story" and that would be a fairly accurate series of events. It's a 3rd person cover shooter on last gen, and it really follows the tried and true formula for what makes those games fun. While it really doesn't do anything new, it also doesn't do anything wrong, which is really the best thing I could've asked for in a game like this (reinventing the wheel just wasn't necessary for the narrative they were trying to tell to be successful). BUT the gameplay is really not the main event in this game, as you, reader probably well know. The main event here is the story. For the public bit, I will only comment that the story is voice acted very well, and with the exception of one performance drop in a cutscene, the game also runs very well so that never really broke my immersion. Additionally, there are "intel" bits you can find and collect for extra details on the world and the main character's thoughts, and THANK GOODNESS they do not commit the Mafia II sin of having them strewn about battlefields. With the exception of one in chapter 10 and one in the last chapter that has combat, all of these intel pieces are in places where there's no combat anyway, and I was able to find all of them on my first playthrough. They're never really nefariously hidden, as long as you keep your eyes open and hug a wall every now and then. Not necessary to the story or the experience, but I like when games do something gamey that doesn't break the immersion too much *COUGH* Alan Wake *COUGH*. Verdict: DAMN recommended. If you are going to play ANY shooter of last gen for its story, make it Spec Ops: The Line. It is now one of my favorite story-focused games in any genre, and especially the shooter genre. It's only 6-8 hours long (depending on how much you die, and I died quite a bit on the last couple chapters, but I only took 7 hours) so it's not an incredible time commitment, and I do sincerely recommend playing through it in once sitting to get the full experience of the narrative at once. Another simple but brilliant downloadable game from the madmen over at G-Style (of Alien on the Run fame).
This game is more or less Tetris with physics, with some extra nonsense thrown in. Weird and random (although usually themed) object drop down from the top screen onto the bottom screen. You need to rotate them so they land on the base without falling off of it or through it. If stuff falls off of it, the badness meter goes up, and if it hits the top before you finish the 5-stage block, then you lose! I never had a problem with that though, though I came very close once or twice, as depending on how many objects you stack up in a stage, the meter is lowered by a certain amount. Dropping the pieces isn't all easy though. On the top screen of about every stage, there're all kinds of nasty storm clouds, mutant birds, torrenting winds, and black holes trying to take away your ability to guide them slowly down. If you hit one of these top-screen obstacles on the piece's way down, then it plummets to the bottom. Being that these are physics objects, it will usually SLAM into your pile, and usually knock something loose and mess up your beautiful stack. Additionally, on the 5th level, a member of the evil construction company will come to harass you, and this ranges from horrible stuff like really ramping up the drop speed or randomly picking a direction for your object to constantly turn, to reletively harmless stuff like locking your ability to turn the object, or giving you a series of annoyingly shaped objects. The story doesn't need to be there, and is totally aware of it. It's completely off the wall, tropey and very very silly. It's just there for a laugh between stages, and it accomplishes that goal. Verdict: Recommended. It's not of the quality of something like Alien on the Run, but if you want a fun, quick time-waster on your 3DS, this is a fantastic choice This review will probably be shorter than my past few, mostly because it's Katamari! If you don't know what it is, then it's really easy to describe, and if you do know what it is, then you probably already have an opinion on it, so it's not really that worth dribbling on about here. I'd already loved the first two games, especially the second one, and this game reaffirmed that well-deserved love. The only part that made me sad was to learn that this was really the last real Katamari game on a console, with the PS3 one just being a compilation and not so much a new game of its own ;A;
It's Katamari Damacy: You use both joysticks as tank controls to roll around a big ball that sticks to anything smaller than it that you roll into. It's wacky, it's Japanese, and it's very very fun. The King of the Cosmos is his usual campy, cocky self, spitting tons of weird lines of both praise (of himself) and of demeaning (you, his son). The art style is more or less the same as the PS2 games, which I'm inclined to forgive not only because this was a fairly early 360 title, but also because it means the game has a really good frame-rate that rarely dips, and was immediately noticeable for me. Only in the very final levels when you get SO big that you can see most of the map at once does the game start to chug at all, and even then it certainly doesn't harm gameplay. In comparison to the first game, it blows it out of the water. The first game had a bit more personality in the writing and had more, better music, but this game just has SO much better levels. There are fewer of them, yes, but gone are the totally wank "collect the biggest X in this area," or "collect only X as much as you can" stages that plagued that game. Now in addition to the missions where you gotta roll a Katamari to X-size, you also need to focus somewhat on the theme of that level (be it toys, cold things, powerful things, energy things, etc.) but that usually isn't too hard. In comparison to the second game, though it has been a while since I played it, I do recall that game having more levels. I could be remembering it wrong though. Beautiful Katamari I would say is at least on the level of that game, though perhaps not quite as good because that game's writing was very self-referential and sillier, and it had more stages. This game keeps that game's local co-op mode though, so that's nice. The 360 version does have a level full of 360 controllers and consoles though, which made me giggle quite a bit X3. This game is also HARD like the past couple games. Especially the last 3 or 4 stages, you really gotta work to get the Katamari big enough for the goal-size. Verdict: Highly recommended. It's Katamari! It's silly, it's wacky, and it's above all: fun. Even if you suck at it (like I kinda do, though I like to think not too badly), you'll have fun with the cool environments, neat art style, and fantastic music. I can also speak from experience to the fact that the co-op mode is a fantasticly fun thing to do with someone who doesn't play video games too often, or even with one who does. I will admit, this is really just a slightly lesser version of We Love Katamari but on a 360. However, if you can get past that, then it's a fantastic game that's still a boat-load of fun. This game is more or less Alice: Madness Returns meets Asura's Wrath, but it doesn't really do anything that those games do as well as they do.
The plot is based off of The Book of Epoch, which in layman's terms is more or less an old Hebrew holy book that didn't make the cut to be included as a part of the official New Testament (the second half the the Christian holy book). That, as a concept, is really cool, but it really REALLY harmed by the choice to make Epoch, the main character, a completely silent protagonist. The writer has said that he did this in order to make Epoch an easier stand-in for the player character, but that is an AWFUL choice for a game based on a legendary story like this! The game doesn't have that crowded or present of a cast in the first place, so as a result of your main character being silent, the game's story is usually just boring or in some cases downright off-putting and confusing because they're talking to him as if he has a character of his own. This leads to the game's narrative and gameplay having some serious pacing problems, which really almost kept me from finishing it. The gameplay itself is a mixture of somewhat simple combat combined with 3D platforming, both of which suffer because of the aesthetic choices of the art design. The combat is a three-button 3D brawler, which really has no reason to be 3-button at all. A jumps, X attacks, and RB blocks. While LB is used for something else, both triggers and the other two face buttons literally do nothing. With how many alternative moves can be pulled off by timing your attack button presses in some arbitrary confusing manner, or some combination of block and jump or block and attack, the game really would've benefited from some more combat diversity, such as perhaps a light and heavy attack button. You do have 3 different kinds of weapons you can steal from enemies (you're almost never unarmed and you're usually pretty screwed if you are). There's the Gale that lets you do a horizontal dash as well as fire projectiles, the Shield/Gauntlets (I'm not sure that's the real name, but that's what it is) that lets you have a much better block as well as hit harder, and the Arch which gives you a slight hover to your double jump as well as being a quicker melee attack. These add a little to the combat with sort of a rock, paper, scissors mechanic on which ones make enemies that use them stagger more, but the Gale just leaves you SO open to attack in most arenas that it's almost never worth using. Additionally, a lot of the platforming is such pixel perfect jumps that you almost require the Arch's better double jump to even make them, so I used the arch almost the entire game because the platforming is so annoying. The platforming is very annoying due to two things: The aforementioned precision jumping in a 3D environment and the art design of the environments. The art and environment design is very ethereal and mysterious. As a result, it's very cell-shaded with tons of floating pieces of rock to jump on, as well as the path you're on being just about the only land present to even explore in. Only, because of how much it's just floating platforms that you're moving between, and because the camera can NEVER be moved manually (although it's usually pretty good), it's often very difficult to judge weather or not you're going to land the jumps you're trying to make, especially if the platforms are falling beneath you or constantly moving, as they often are. Additionally, the battlefields you fight in often have totally invisible floors, making dodging some attacks very difficult because you don't even have your shadow on the ground to judge where you are in the air. If you carry the arch through the whole game like I tried to do, you can come across some secret areas that require its better jumps to access (some also require the shield to bash down a cracked wall, and the Gale's dash is far too imprecise to be useful for platforming: It's much more for dodging). You can usually just get red power orbs in these locations, although if they're valuable or not, I'm not sure, which brings me to another complaint: The game is TERRIBLE at giving useful information to the player. The red "power" orbs are never clear on what they do. I eventually sort of settled on that they make your boost meter better, although I have no idea how it gets any "better." You have a boost meter which lets you activate an overlimit mode that staggers enemies a ton, but there's no actual gauge that shows when this will activate!!! It just randomly turns on, and lasts for some mysterious amount of time, and there's really no way to know when it ends. Bosses and enemies never have health bars, so sometimes you won't even be sure if you're damaging them at all. This is especially confusing because there are some boss fights that you just get sucked into, which apparently have no penalty or benefit for winning or losing. Why are they there? Probably some achievement? I HAVE NO CLUE. Not until you beat the game once (it's about 7-ish hours long) do you UNLOCK the ability to have bars and gauges. That is such an awful design choice in a game that already is so confusing and makes the player feel like their time isn't being respected. There are also secret areas where you get to play a sort of platforming mini-game to get extra collectibles. There's a pan out of the circular hold you're in to show you where it is, but there's no good bearing on where you actually start in relation, and the whole area looks the same, so once I got to the 3rd one, I had absolutely no idea where the collectible was, so I just gave up on them. I have no idea what these collectibles achieve other than probably just some achievement, but what I do know is that if you die during the mini-game, you get to watch a REALLY long game-over cutscene (it's like 2 or 3 minutes), and I couldn't find any way to speed it up or skip it. And the loading times ain't too quick either, so retrying these segments for that collectible takes foreeeever. The main good things I can say about this game, are that it is VERY pretty, and there are some good boss battles. The art style is sort of realistic, sort of surreal, and the stale-ish voice acting actually works to the game's favor in depicting that the actor's talking aren't used to human speech, most all of them being angels or some other demi-god-type being. However, the lip-movements haven't been synced to the English voice acting on most cutscenes, so it often looks pretty off-putting when you see characters speak. The music ranges from atmospheric to really pumping as well, and I thought it was very good, and a good portion of it I wouldn't mind throwing on my phone to listen to at some point. Complaints about the combat system aside, there are some good boss battles, especially the non-angel ones. The ones where you're fighting big monsters are often much better designed, with more easily swappable weapons, changing boss forms, and the arena-style fighting making much more sense. The final boss especially is great. Verdict: Not recommended. To be honest, most of what this game did was make me wish I was playing one of the better games of last-gen that are so similar to it. That's not to say that El Shaddai is awful or even bad, but it's just so "okay" that it's hard to recommend when there plenty of other great games in the cool plot/concept + 3D platformer/brawler sub-genre of last gen (Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Alice Madness Returns, Asura's Wrath, Splatterhouse, etc.) that do everything that this game does but better. I didn't really know what to expect going into this game. I knew what the 2nd game was all about, so I expected something along those lines, but considering that this game was originally made exclusively for 3DS before it got ported to everything else, it's a really cool and great 3rd person action/horror game. Before I begin, for the record: I played on a NEW 3DS XL on normal mode, and it took me about 10 hours 20 minutes, deaths and all. I only used a guide to make sure I was fighting the final boss correctly (because he was a tough fucker).
The game is divided up into chapters, which act sort of like television episodes, even giving a "Previously, on Resident Evil Revelations" whenever you finish a chapter or start the campaign back up again. I don't think this game was even released episodically, so I have no idea why they did that really O.o . The story is pretty standard Resident Evil though. Lots of mysteries, betrayal, humanoid and animal zombie/mutants (they're very clearly mutants, almost in a Dead Space kind of way, but Jill even refers to them once as "zombies," at one point.) Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for a mystery, but it sucked me right in, even though not everything made total sense. I thought it was a good mystery, even though it does have a couple "really?" moments. The chapters have you constantly hopping between Jill in the present, and other members of the BSAA either concurrently or flashbacks. Jill has persistent ammo levels, maps, and weapons mods and max-ammo expansions she can find. The weapon mods can be equipped into your weapons at benches, and added and removed at the benches whenever you want. They're stuff that makes your guns better, and the harder you look for them, the more powerful and unique ones you'll find (more damage, more rate of fire, more stopping power, more crits, fire more bullets with one trigger press, etc.). Also, if you look really hard, you can even find extra, more powerful guns. Though not necessarily always more powerful. Usually just balanced in a different way. The other BSAA agents are just one-offs though. Even if you pick back up with them at a later time, their ammo and items will be reset. It's pretty fun, regardless and serves to keep the pacing up and the environments fresh. The gameplay is a 3rd person shooter horror experience. I hesitate to call it "survival horror," because the original games really had an emphasis on conserving ammo and picking and choosing your battles, where this game really doesn't. I blasted everything I came across in the face, and I usually didn't have any trouble running out of ammo. Though the threat of running out of ammo was always there, especially at boss fights. Those things really drain your reserves, in traditional RE fashion. There are a couple of points where its feasible to dodge past an enemy or physically go around him, but the ship you're on has tons of really narrow hallways, and the enemies are right fat fuckers, so usually scooting past them isn't possible. There's also no run mechanic, so you're a right slow bastard. There is a dodge mechanic, but it's total wank. I only ever did it by accident. This brings me to the controls. Though I had a very fun time, my NEW 3DS XL was constantly fighting back at me. The 2nd joystick just isn't very intuitive to use. Sometimes it's like a D-pad where you just push it down a certain area, and other times you gotta jam it with your nail just to make your fat self turn, especially in the under-water parts. I had a lot of issues realted to aiming, but you should KEEP IN MIND: I never even tried to use the other control methods. Given the litany of positive reviews this got when it came out, which was before the NEW 3DS, I have to imagine that that method might be a bit better. The console versions are slightly different, so if you insist on playing it on a 3DS, I think that an original 3DS with a Circle Pad Pro would be the optimal way to do it, though that is only a guess, as I do not have one. Finally on the graphics and presentation. In a word: Amazing! For a 3DS game, this has SO much voice acting and FANTASTIC music. The final boss theme and credits theme especially were really ear-catching. The cutscenes are in a fairly low resolution, but still look pretty good. The in game models though, even on the bigger XL screen, look great. They look almost like a PS2 or a Gamecube game they're so good. This has to be one of the best looking games on 3DS, even now. Verdict: Highly recommended. If you want a seriously different experience from the normal 3DS game, this is your ticket. It's a fantastic 3rd-person shooter, and control gripes aside, I was still loving the crap out of it. I'm thinking of even buying the Wii U version just because I wanna see the game in HD (and play Raid Mode with a friend, which I have not tried yet). I bought this game solely because pfrsnl_gmr recommended it, and given how good his recommendation of Ninja Smasher was, I thought trusting him again was a safe bet, AND BOY WAS IT EVER.
This game has a very weird playstyle. You'd have to watch a video or try the demo to really get a feel for yourself, but I'd describe it as Incredible Crisis meets Trials HD. You're an alien trying to escape from space-jail, and to do that, you need to run, slide, box, and code your way past obstacles before time runs out. There are two types of tractor beams that can trap you. If you slide into and then stop in the yellow ones, you get a time bonus. The purple ones can't be destroyed though. Other than getting sucked up by a tractor beam, every other obstacle just serves to slow you down to either get a bad score or fail the stage when time runs out. There are 16 stages with 5 levels in each, so there're quite a few, even though at their shortest they range almost always below a minute or close to it. The short time limits are why I love this game. One of the most addicting features is going for S-ranks by getting your allotted time above the "target time" by skillfully enough disarming the yellow traps. In racing games and such, I hate time trials because they always take like 4 or 5+ minutes for each one. In this game, you can instantly restart the stage whenever, and each stage takes almost always less than a minute, so it's in super palatable doses. The stages are super well designed as well, and the controls are equally as tight: Whenever I got a bad time, I knew it was my fault, not the game's. It took me 2.5 hours to beat, just about right on the nose, but that was just right for me for what I paid for it (it's on sale for $2 right now). What really made this game stand out, though, was the theme. The main character is an alien, but he looks like more of a weird demon thing with his mouth taped over. Whenever you stand up from a slide, he does these wacky, silly poses that range from the Micheal Jackson crotch-grab (complete with fedora-tip), to sleeping in a sleeping back, to reading the paper while taking a dump on a toilet. It's just so wacky and silly, it's hard to get too mad, even when you mess up a bunch (like I did goin' for dem A and S ranks). I mentioned this in the "Awesome Eshop Deals" thread as well, but the game feels like games like You Can't Stop Mr. Domino and Incredible Crisis back on the PS1: It's reminiscent of a time back when really weird, arcadey games would make it over here from Japan, and developers weren't afraid to really experiment with this new 3D thing in weird and wonky ways. Verdict: Very highly recommended. If you're looking for the best exclusive game on the eShop, this is a really serious contender. This is an amazing gem that I very thoroughly enjoyed, and can't recommend enough. The developer, G-Style, has that weird theme in a lot of their games, and they're all at least worth trying the demos of if not buying, I'd say. |
Categories
All
AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
|