Horror games have a lot of parallels with the RPG market. Both were started in the west. Early US RPG’s were things like Ultima, Wizardry, The Bard’s Tale the SSI Dungeons & Dragons video games and so on. Early horror games included Haunted House, Uninvited, Shadow of the Comet and Alone in the Dark. Eventually both genres really took hold in Japan and the East began to outdo the West in these genres in terms of quantity, and some might say quality as well. The mid to late 1990’s would be the peak of both genres in Japan. The RPG market had the Phantasy Star games, Shining Force, and of course Final Fantasy VII exploded the genre to new heights of popularity. In the horror market, Japan gave us titles like Echo Night, Clock Tower, Hellnight/Dark Messiah and more. At the same time, although the West’s production of both genres fell during this time, when a game hit, it hit big. Planescape: Torment is an example for RPG’s and The 7th Guest is a perfect example for horror games.

In the past few years though, Japan’s level of quality seems to have slid in both regards allowing some to say the West is back on top in terms of who makes the best in both genres. With games like World of Warcraft, Diablo, Neverwinter Nights, both Vampire: The Masquerade titles and Dragon Age, Western RPG’s have had something of a revival. If we look at our own site, Western RPG’s have won our “RPG of the Year award for the past two years. Again, horror games have taken a similar route. Japan has either taken the actual horror content out of the games with titles like Resident Evil 4 & 5 (They’re now more action titles than ones meant to induce terror), or they have made subpar games that fail in quality and tone like Ju-On. Meanwhile the West has had new life breathed into their horror games, displaying a staggering amount of creativity with titles like The Last Crown, Barrow Hill, Tomb of Zojir and more. Even a title like Becky Brogan, which is geared for younger and/or casual gamers tends to elicit a stronger feeling of creepiness than most J-horror games these days. Now there are obvious exceptions as games like the recent Silent Hill and Theresia that shows Japan is still trying to creep gamers out, but no one would say J-Horror is at the level of quality it was at a decade ago – either in films OR video games.

So now here we are with Calling. In my hands-on preview of the game, I said the game had potential and that I was hopeful that this came could recapture the magic of the quality J-Horror titles of yesteryear. So did Calling live up to its potential, or did we have another Illbleed on our hands?

Let’s Review

1. Story

Although you play as four different characters throughout your experience with Calling , your main character is Rin Kagura. Rin is a 21 year old girl with a heavy heart. Six years ago she was to meet an online friend for a play date. The two had never met before and Rin’s friend was afraid she wouldn’t show. Rin promised she would show and then promptly got hit by a truck. When she got out of the hospital, she never heard from or saw her friend again. This is the crux of the story and although you’ll be playing as four different characters, one of which doesn’t really come into play until after you “beat” the game, everything will always come back to this plot point – even though you don’t get it until a few missions into the game.

In fact, the would-be main story of the game as prefaced in both the manual and the opening to the game is a bit of a red herring. It talks about a sinister website that contains only a visitor counter, but hidden somewhere on the page is a chat room link. There, if your heart has been tinged by darkness, you may receive contact from the dead and be plunged into “The Mnemonic Abyss.”

This all sounds well and good, but it’s kind of an afterthought save for the plot point as to how characters wake up in a strange gloomy place that they know and yet there is no power and the location is filled with bloodthirsty specters.

I don’t want to spoil the story but I will say that although the game has moments of pure creepiness, most of it isn’t very scary. In the first episode (which is also the episode from the preview I did), the scariest thing are the creepy dolls in the level. In the level after that, your would be scares comes from a badly rendered fat ghost schoolgirl who tries to strangle you. In fact most of the scares in the game follow the same pattern. Random occurrences that try and strange you, or Set encounters that try and strange you. The only real change is that the ghosts will have different skins on them based on what episode you are in. Also, the further into the story you get, the stupider the game becomes. Both endings (as well as the events leading up to them) will have you rolling your eyes and sighing at how inane they are. This might be scary to a teenager, but this isn’t even scary by current J-Horror standards.

The game just overuses the main horror aspects to the point where they go from AWESOME in the first few episodes, to “ho-hum” the further into the game you get because you come to expect them and thus they lose all sense of dread and surprise. Everything just blurs together because aside from the pre-rendered graphics of the level and the skins on your ghost, everything follows the same pattern from beginning to end. This wouldn’t be so bad except that once you’ve beaten the game and got the ending, you learn that there is a second “real” ending and to get it (and the new events) you have to replay this extremely linear game that unfolds 95% the same way it did in the first playthrough. By this point the game will have gone from intriguing and creepy to flat out dull and monotonous and you are given the wonder revelation that you have to do it all again. Had Hudson just left the one ending in, or even provided us with a bevy of scares instead of a half dozen overused ones, we could have had a serious horror and/or adventure GOTY candidate. Instead, we have something that like your antagonists, just didn’t know when to give up and die.

Story Rating: Below Average

2. Graphics

Like the story, the graphics of Calling are a mixed bag. Aside from ghost attacks, this is very similar to the point and click first person Adventure games for the PC. This means nearly everything except for the items you can pick up or interact with are pre-rendered and static. Even then, many of the things you can interact with don’t move; they just make a noise then you touch them. This makes actually finding things you can interact with a bit hard as everything tends to look alike. There will be things you think you can pick up that you can’t, and things that have always been static items before that you can now pick up in this particular episode or moment. Combine this with items having a small pixel detection area so that your cursor changes into a, “Hey, you can fiddle with that!” icon, and you can often be moving almost on top of, or even over something you can interact with, and you’ll never know it.

Besides these quibbles, the pre-rendered backgrounds are decent. Calling definitely doesn’t push the Wii’s graphics by any means, but what’s here is passable for the experience. There isn’t a lot of detail to the backgrounds and items, but it’s still a hair better than a good chunk of the games out there for Nintendo’s dominant little system.

The cut scenes are of a higher quality than the in-game visuals, but they’re still not as powerful as what we’ve seen the Wii is capable of. Movements are nicely done though ,and I was impressed with the animation quality, if not the detail. Character models are fun too. There are actually a wide range of characters and they all look pretty good. Sadly you only see them really during cut scenes.

Ghosts are the only real moving thing in the game other than yourself, but they range from really well done and creepy (like the first ghost in the game), unexpected (Like a ghoulish arm at the very end of the game that snags a cell phone that you think you are supposed to interact with), or so bad you find yourself laughing rather than being scared (like most of the schoolgirl ghosts).

Overall, Calling looks better than most Wii titles that are out there, but a lot could have been done to really improve this. Point and click titles usually have amazing graphics due to the static nature of the images, but Calling does hit the level of quality this genre is known for, even while surpassing a lot of the crap that clutters the Wii section of your local game store.

Graphics Rating: Above Average

3. Sound

If there is one thing the game does exceptionally well, it’s the audio. In fact, this is arguably the best use for the Wiimote speakers I have ever seen. You see, although the game revolves around the internet, the name of the game and its trademark freak out comes from cell phones. When you are not trying to use your Wiimote to control your tank-like character through hospitals or schools, the Wiimote doubles as a cell phone. You can call people with it, take pictures with and most importantly, receive calls from it. When you do make or receive a call, you’ll hold the Wiimote to your head like a cell phone, although the level of brain tumour inducing radiation is probably lower with the controller. Then you’ll hear a voice talk to you though the Wiimote. I can’t stress how well done this is, nor how freaky it is to get a call from a ghost through the fun, complete with static and ominous rasping. The only downside is that the game overuses this to where it is no longer scary, but annoying, especially when you get constantly calls in succession. I have learned that you don’t have to answer the phone, but the game doesn’t really like that and answering is better than the constant ringing anyway.

Voice acting is well done in both English and Japanese. Often the voice of the character surpasses the visuals and the emotions they are supposed to be conveying. That really saves the game at times, although noting can truly save the plot.

Calling certainly is a one trick pony with its awesome audio features, but it’s definitely worth at least picking up the demo of this game to see just how well done the music, voice acting and most of all, the Wiimote speaker usage are.

Sound Rating: Classic

4. Control and Gameplay

In my preview I mentioned I wasn’t too fond of the controls in this game, and after beating it, I have to say my opinion of the controls has actually decreased. Generally point and click games are really easy to navigate and play through, but actually moving your character can be rather unwieldy. The game uses the Wiimotes infra-red sensor to act as a laser pointer as well as looking in the direction you want to view. There is some lag with moving and your character is hard to steer. It definitely feels like the dev team wanted to make a panoramic Adventure game, and as such, this game would handle far better on a PC with a mouse than with the Wiimote, but then you wouldn’t get the phone call feeling. So, checks and balances.

The controls are pretty straight forward. The infra-red controls your directional view, the nunchuk analog stick lets you move. The Z button is for running, the C button is for crouching and the D-pad controls your flashlight. The rest is your standard point and click game, where the A button replaces your mouse clicks and is used for talking, interacting with objects, examing things and solving puzzles. Again, the game would play easier if the pixel detection range was bigger than what you are given. An example is in the second mission where a voice comes over the phone telling me it is slowly climbing up floors look for me and then it stops on the floor below me. I walk all around the floor, but I can’t open the doors to go down. Then on my second go through I try to interact with anything and everything. Nothing. It turns out in this glowing room I tried the door and windows of, that I was indeed supposed to click on the window to peer into a crack – it just wasn’t changing my cursor unless I let it sit on the window, and then only in a certain part of the window. A good Adventure game would have had the cursor change instantly and the amount of pixels that would have triggered the cursor change would have been far greater. This makes playing Calling somewhat frustrating and often times it will feel unintuitive because you will swear you are doing what you are supposed to and you ARE; the game is just not responding.

The only other real controls you need to worry about are when you are attacked by a ghost. When one grabs you, you’ll first get a chance to dodge by pressing A at the right moment. If you do this, they go away until they come after you again. Otherwise you’ll have the shake the Wiimote to get them off of you. The longer you take the more your heartbeat will rise. If it gets too high, you’ll die from fear. There are other situations that can raise your heart rate, and standing still or resting can decrease it. Think of it as Illbleed but better. You’ll find dealing with ghosts to be exceptionally easy, but then the same ghost will generally attack you every few seconds after your first encounter with it until you get to a “safe” area that the ghost can’t get to. So expect what is a tense and freaky situation at first to quickly become tedious. You’ll go from swearing in shock to swearing due to the repetitiveness.

Calling is neither a bad nor awful game to play through, but it’s also not very fun. Had the game been shorter or not so repetitive, it could have been a lot better. The controls feel like they are better suited for a PC game and the developers seemed to have no idea of the concept of overkill.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Decent

5. Replayability

Calling is an exceptionally linear game. You can’t deviate from the exact order that events must occur in, and with all the flaws in the game, you’re counting your blessings when the credits roll. Then you learn it’s a fake ending and you have to play through everything AGAIN. All the missions you’ve already beaten along with some new stuff that really isn’t worth repeating the tedium for. Most of the added bits feel like they should have been in the game during the first run or you could have just replayed SOME of the game to highlight key differences – not repeat things that go exactly the same for the second time. Honestly, what’s the point of that?

It should take you about five hours to get the first ending and then a Herculean willpower to play for the real ending. God knows the only reason I kept going was for review purposes and so little changed, even in the endings, save for one or two details (like one you talk on a phone to someone while the in other you talk TO them) so it feels like a cheat. If you weren’t pissed at the game when you thought you had beaten it, you WILL be when you actually have. It almost not worth playing for the real ending, it will be that tedious.

Replayability Rating: Bad

6. Balance

It’s funny, but trying to find an item (or once you have, to pick it up) can be harder than any of the ghosts you deal with. Aside from the rare ghost that can instantly kill you, you should never have a problem shoving a ghost off or at least keeping your heartbeat regularly. The ghosts are more a garnish to the story than an actual threat.

Aside from the times where you are searching for what to do next, you have the puzzles. Most of the puzzles involve getting keys, finding passwords to unlock computers, slide puzzles or combination locks. Nothing is especially hard as there are clues scattered here and there in the episode the puzzles take place in, but if you don’t find those clues it can be a bit hard as you’ll be reduced to guess and check. As well, the game doesn’t pause when you are using the phone or the like, so if a ghost is after you and the phone rings, you might want to wait to pick up. Don’t worry – they’ll call back.

Calling’s not a challenging game and for a teenager or casual gamer, this would probably be a fun (but safe) title to play late at night with the lights turned off. There are some novel ideas here, but adults will find it as much a pushover as it is boring.

Balance Rating: Decent

7. Originality

There are two things this game does that are extraordinarily clever. The first is the use of the Wiimote as a cell phone. The second is something a lot of gamers may completely miss. Let’s say you play a couple adventures. You know in the lower right hand corner of the screen where the Wii shows how long you played a title, along with any announcements or emails that you get? Well after playing the game, wait a few seconds (or minutes) and the amount of messages will update. Click on the box and there will be an eerie envelope (or more) for you. Look inside for an unexpected bit of creepiness. This was a fun touch.

The rest of the game though? Yeah, not very original. You can see things taken from One Missed Call, Pulse, Hell Girl and things sniped from other J-Horror games, films and cliches, right down to the main ghost being a black haired girl with something stringy black stuff. Oy.

I’ll be kind and give it a thumbs in the middle as the game balances some pretty original additions to the horror and/or adventure genres while giving us a very paint by numbers plot filled with horror things you used to tell each other ’round the campfire as children. “I’m on the first floor.” … “I’m on the second floor.” So on and so forth.

Originality Rating: Mediocre

8. Addictiveness

For the first hour or so, I was pretty glued to the game. The first episode gives you a rather tense and creepy atmosphere, and the second episode starts off okay, but it all goes downhill from there. The game overuses its original and clever ideas until you are sick of them. Ghosts are far too frequent and yet far too easy which degenerates the entire process into an eye rolling, profanity inducing humdrum experience. I’m still unsure who thought it was a good idea to basically make you play the game twice, but they need to be drug out into the street and shot.

I really had a hard time wanting to play through this and I generally love Adventure games with a horror theme. Don’t get me wrong – had the game been cleaned up a little, streamlined more, a lot of dead weight cut from the game and some larger item/action detection areas, and this could have been a good game. Instead it’s merely a forgettable one. Unless you really love “scary” games, you’re going to find it as hard as I did to complete this thing.

Addictiveness Rating: Poor

9. Appeal Factor

We don’t have a lot of exclusive horror options on the Wii. There’s Escape From Bug Island, which is awful. There is Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which is awesome. The sequel, The Darkside Chronicles is decidedly worse. Dead Space: Extraction is a lot of fun. House of the Dead: Overkill is another good horror game for the Wii that I can think of. Other than that there is Fatal Frame 4 which Nintendo paid a good amount of money to ensure the series would go Wii-exclusive…and then decided not to bring it stateside. Other than that, there are a lot of HORRIBLE Wii games, but not a lot of HORROR. As such, gamers are going to see this and be rather hopefully as to the quality of this title. Especially as the budget price tag. Unfortunately, the game is bound to disappoint many, if not most, of them.

I didn’t hate Calling; I just found it forgettable. It has a few good ideas but then it runs them into the ground. Perhaps a less discerning gamer can have more fun with this than I did, but with EBGamestop not letting brick and mortar customers preorder this, it’s going to be lost even to the niche audience it would otherwise have. Still, if you need a horror fix, you could do a lot worse on the Wii and not much better unless you like rail shooters.

Appeal Factor: Mediocre

10.Miscellaneous

It was nice to see Hudson Soft try some new gameplay ideas with the game. Every new thing they added was a lot of fun…until they overused them to the point of nausea. I’m also happy the game is set ten dollars below the standard MSRP, which might help to counteract EBGamestop’s refusal to let customers preorder this.

This wasn’t a bad game by any means – it just wasn’t a very good one. It was just too much of the same thing with little to no deviation and it went on far longer than a game with these particular flaws should have. Still, Calling is at least worst a rental or the nifty gameplay ideas, but I can’t say it is worth owning or even beating. There’s not enough substance and far more padding than any game should subject a player to.

Miscellaneous Rating: Below Average

The Scores
Story: Below Average
Graphics: Above Average
Sound: Classic
Control and Gameplay: Decent
Replayability: Bad
Balance: Decent
Originality: Mediocre
Addictiveness: Below Average
Appeal Factor: Mediocre
Miscellaneous: Below Average
FINAL SCORE: MEDIOCRE GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Although Calling sports some very original ideas in regards to one what can do with the Wii, it ultimately overuses the ideas to the point where what seemed innovative at the beginning of the game ends up feeling like a dead horse that the developers have beaten to death, revived using unholy necromancy, and then beaten the undeath out of as well. The story likewise starts off ominous and creepy but quickly degenerates into tedium. It’s also nice to see a return to the Clock Tower and/or Echo Night’s, “You can’t hurt these apparitions so run like hell” gameplay, but the ghosts are as easy to push away as they are numerous. So any sense of terror is replaced by a combination of boredom and irritation at having to push away say, the same fat schoolgirl ghost for the second dozen time as you attempt to make it to the staircase. With a little bit of control tightening, a better story, and cutting out the padding (which makes up roughly half the game), and Wii owners could have had a really solid horror adventure experience. Instead they get something that is worth experiencing for the novel gameplay additions, but which is ultimately forgettable and better left as a rental than a purchase.

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Heavy Rain Chronicles is a downloadable series of games that continues the look and feel of Heavy Rain. The first episode is currently only available to people who preordered Heavy Rain and I have to admit, the way Sony handled the DLC was a two-fold faux pas. First, you had to wait over a week after purchasing the game to even use the voucher code. Then once the PSN Store was updated on March 4th, everyone discovered that the code for Heavy Rain Chronicles wasn’t working. Sony finally got things fixed in the wee hours of March 5th, but between those two issues and the 24 hour down time for the older PS3 models, Sony had some pretty big consume relations issues.

All that aside though, what matters is the game. As of this review’s writing, HRC: Episode One is only available to people who preordered Heavy Rain, but the voucher does say it has a $4.99 value, so it’s only a matter of time before the content is for sale in the store. I’m purposely keeping this separate from my actual Heavy Rain review, which I have yet to finish as I’m waiting to get everything in the game (including) all endings before I post my thoughts on it, and I’m also avoiding both spoilers and YouTube footage. What can I say? I’m anal about my Interactive Cinema. You should have seen me as a kid trying to log all the possible death scenes in Dragon’s Lair.

So how was The Taxidermist? Do the chronicles look like they have potential, or should Heavy Rain been left an island unto itself?

Let’s Review

1. Story

In Episode One, you are playing as Madison Paige, an investigative journalist who is trying to figure out the identity of the Origami Killer. With a hot tip that it might be a 40 year old taxidermist named Leiland White, Madison heads on over to the man’s house to see if she can find any evidence or even outright ask Mr. White some questions about the serial slayings.

Without spoiling things for those who have to wait for the content, I will say Episode One is about a half hour of gaming per playthrough. There are five possible endings and I ended up earning, “The End of the Nightmare” which appears to be the most heroic/good/canon of the endings (at least from the unlockable storyboards you can get). Not bad. After beating the scenario, you are allowed to restart from one of three checkpoints and replay to earn the other endings. I really liked that I was given this option instead of having to replay from the very beginning as it allowed me to see all that there was in the game without putting a full two and half to three hours into the title. Trust me, when you review fifty-some games a year, this is a blessing you can’t properly describe. My favourite ending was, “The End of Anguish” as it gave you the most story.

Although the story was light, I will say without spoilers that Madison didn’t find what she was looking for, but she did find something parallel. There isn’t a lot of characterization or depth to either Madison or Leiland as things are kept to a very two dimensional level. Your game revolves around getting into the house, looking for clues and/or evidence, and then getting the hell out. That’s it. There is no real attempt to go beyond basic story telling here, but for the equivalent of $4.99, you’re getting five endings, or an ending per dollar and what’s here is fun if not mind-blowing. I will admit that once Leiland got home my reaction was, “Oh ****, oh ****, oh ****” and that my initial expectation of Leiland being a private transexual was nowhere in the ballpark for what actually unfolded.

In all, I had fun with this brief thirty minute Heavy Rain side story. I can’t say I was floored or in awe of the plot as it was very basic, but I did have fun it, and that’s what matters.

Story Rating: Enjoyable

2. Graphics

Heavy Rain Chronicles looks just as stunning as the main game. There is more detail put into afterthought visuals than most games have in their primary graphics. Quanticdream isn’t kidding when they call this “Interactive Cinema.” I’ve never seen such lifelike animations or visuals in a game before. The way characters blink, breathe, move and react is simply amazing.

There are only two quibbles with the visuals. The first is long hair seems to be a problem for Quanticdream. The second is that the taxidermized (Is that even a word?) objects in the game look more like high end PS2 graphics than PS3 games. The visuals are so noticeably different from the “living” characters, that it is a bit jarring. Other than those small quibbles, the game looks fantastic and I was quite impressed with how well a thirty minute side story looked. Nicely done here.

Graphics Rating: Great

3. Sound

There are only four or five voice acted characters in the game and that’s if you do every possible ending. You have Leiland, Madison, her friend Sam, and two possible police officer voices. Four of the five voices are excellent, with only Leiland being a bit weak. Now Leiland and Sam are done by the same voice actor according to the credits, so I’m going to say that’s the director’s fault and not the actor’s. Leiland doesn’t seem to have the same level of believability as Madison as times his delivery is a bit wooden or forced. He’s nicely done otherwise, but there is no denying that at times the delivery is a bit off.

Now, if you change the vocals to French, it’s a different story. The delivery is stronger and if you can understand French (I wish I knew how to make a circumflex on an American keyboard), you’ll find the overall emotion and tenseness of the game to be better in this language. I’m chalking this up to the fact that this a French game and so like many things, it is better in its native language.

Music is rare but when it does play, it is quite somber and brooding, which is a perfect fit for the feeling of this short stand-alone. Sound effects are very realistic and really help to make this feel like an interactive movie rather than a video game.

All things considered, this was very nicely done here.

Sound Rating: Very Good

4. Control and Gameplay

The controls of Heavy Rain Chronicles are the same as what you will find in Heavy Rain, which should surprise no one. It’s basically a combination of cinematic adventure gameplay like you would find in Space Ace or Brain Dead 13 and the kind of gameplay you get when a third person adventure game like Still Life(Another wonderful serial killer mystery game BTW) is ported to a console.

If you still have yet to play Heavy Rain, the breakdown is as follows: You use the R2 button to walk and the right analog stick to guide your character’s direction. Occasionally you will also use the right analog stick to interact with objects or get a closer look at some of the background items in the game. The only real game play besides this comes from Active Time Events, which can be broken down into four categories:

A) Hold down buttons for a period of time
B) Shake the Controller
C) Button Mashing
D) Timed events where you must hit buttons or press directions within a limited amount of time.

Everything here is exceedingly simple to learn and I also like the extra depth you can get by hitting L2 and being able to have the character provide an inner monologue on a variety of subjects. My only real quibble with the controls is that sometimes the camera angles make it hard to see what motion you are supposed to do to open a drawer or interact with an object or that sometimes the moving the character can be a bit like driving a tank. What I mean by this is sometimes they are hard to steer or turn and occasionally the character will take a step or two after you stop pressing R2. In one instance my character kept walking right onto creaky floorboards, which gave away my position and started a game of cat and mouse. Whoops. Still, my issues with the controls are few and far between.

On a side note, I do know some gamers have complained about the SixAxis sensitivity (or lack thereof). I do want to let readers know I tried the game with a Sixaxis and a DualShock 3 controller and I found oddly enough, the SixAxis actually was the more responsive choice, both with motion controls and overall play. If you’re having problems, maybe switch to the older controller model.

Overall, this was a solid playthrough and I have to admit I found gameplay to be tighter and with less detection errors than in the core game. There also aren’t nigh endless Active Time Events which was another bonus.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Good

5. Replayability

In two hours, I had achieved all five endings and had gotten two different variants on “The End of Nightmares” ending. In my first playthrough, I escaped to my motorcycle after a terse battle and in the second I didn’t need to escape because I cut someone’s groin off with a chainsaw and left him to bleed to death. This highlights that although there are five set endings categories, there are many ways to achieve the endings. This means you can freely replay The Taxidermist multiple times, even after achieving all the endings and still get new dialogue or situations. That’s pretty impressive for a $4.99 (or at least that’s what it will eventually cost) side story download.

Although you can get everything possible out of HRC: Episode One in a single evening, there’s still an amazing amount of content here for downloadable content. I’m kind of surprised there weren’t any trophies for this though.

Replayability Rating: Good

6. Balance

One of the great things about Heavy Rain is that there are three difficulty settings designed to make the Active Time Event accessible to everyone from casual gamers who might use their PS3 more as a Blu-Ray Player to people who live, eat, sleep and breath games. Heavy Rain Chronicles follows suit and I found the game to be nicely balanced. Active Time Events were harder based on if you did something stupid or not, like running down stairs and confront your would be assailant instead of running and hiding from him.

The game is so short that it’s somewhat hard to judge how balanced the game is. The only time I had any difficulty was on those rare occasions where steering was a bit haphazard. Other than that all the events went smoothly and they were executed flawlessly.

There are two problems I had though that really should be discussed. The first is that once you get inside the house, you can’t get back out until you trigger Mr. White’s return home. This to me seems like a pretty big oversight from a side story that gives you so many other options. You can’t open the front door or a window. There is literally no way out once you are in safe for triggering a single specific plot point. It feels to me like this needed to be an option and thus a sixth ending like, “Scaredy Cat” or something similar.

The other issue is that you HAVE to go inside. When you ring the doorbell and no one answers you can look at the internal dialogue and choose “Too Bad” which prompts Ms. Paige to want to go home. Unfortunately, the game won’t let you. You are again stuck having to go inside. This makes me wonder why you are given the option to choose to want to go home in the first place. It’s a very logical and reasonable choice of, “Hey, my interview subject isn’t home. It’s cold and rainy and I’ll just come back another time because I don’t want to get arrested for breaking and entering.” Alas, it’s just not there while the game plans for more far out options like using a chainsaw on someone’s special no-no place or smacking someone with a vanity mirror. It’s these gaps of common sense and logic that diminished my enjoyment for the The taxidermist, but it didn’t make me hate it. I still enjoyed my time with in spite of these flaws, but make no mistake about it, these are balance issues. They’re small ones, no doubt about it, but they still exist.

Balance Rating Very Good

7. Originality

As fun as Heavy Rain and thus Heavy Rain Chronicles can be, it really isn’t anywhere as groundbreaking or innovative as people seem to be making it out to be. Point and Click Adventure games have had well-crafted murder mystery stories for decades. Even the main gameplay of Heavy Rain goes back to the very earliest of arcade titles. Interactive cinematic adventure games are one of the oldest genres there is in gaming. I was playing Dragon’s Lair before the very first Super Mario Bros. was released. Like Heavy Rain, this 1983 game captured the attention of gamers across the board for having a story and visuals far ahead of anything else that had come before it. It too was labeled “interactive cinema.” It too had “Game of the Year” hype around it. So on and so forth. None of this is to demean Heavy Rain or the sheet amount of work Quanticdream has put into their game. Instead this is just a reminder to people treating Heavy Rain like it’s completely revolutionized gaming that in fact, what’s here is nothing really all that new or original. It’s just a quality game bringing back a nearly dead genre in the same way NBA Jam revitalized arcade sports games or how Street Fighter IV brought fighting games back into the mainstream spotlight.

So is Heavy Rain Chronicles, like Heavy Rain before it a good game? Yes. Is it a fun game? Yes. Is it really all that original or innovative? No. Not really. This a great example of what hype, clever marketing and a huge glut of gamers ignorant of a genre’s history (or gaming history in general…) can do. It’s nice to see the Interactive Cinema subgenre of Adventure games coming back from the dead, but I can’t with good conscience state that Heavy Rain does anything I have seen a dozen times over, because it simply isn’t true.

Originality Rating: Decent

8. Addictiveness

I actually found myself far more addicted to Heavy Rain Chronicles than the main game itself. Perhaps it is because the episodic content is so short that I was able to go back and hit all five endings in two hours, but as soon as I started The Taxidermist, I found myself unable to stop save to take quick notes on each endings for the purpose of writing this review. I just wanted to keep trying out new things, new hiding places and seeing what events I could trigger. I ended up doing six playthroughs straight, which was really helped by the three checkpoint options and the short nature of this game.

To be honest, if I wanted to introduce someone to Heavy Rain, I’d use this rather than the demo or throw them into the actual game as you’re getting a full story in half an hour. What better way to let a gamer decide whether or not they’d want to buy this title for themselves?

A fun story and a full game that I can replay multiple times and get a very different result for only $4.99 and that I can complete in less time than some casual games. This is a wonderful package for gamers without a lot of free time to devote to say, an 80 hour RPG. I found myself riveted and gamers from all walks of life will too.

Addictiveness Rating: Great

9. Appeal Factor

Heavy Rain really seems to be the “IT” game of 2010, even though we’re only two months in. Again we see a huge parallel with it and Dragon’s lair from 17 years ago. It’s returned Adventure gaming to a spotlight it hasn’t held since The 7th Guest or Myst. As a longtime Adventure fan, I’m pleased to see this response.

As Heavy Rain is getting critical and consumer praise at a level we rarely see these days, it should be obvious that Heavy Rain Chronicles will do just as well. You get a major character from the core game in her own solo story, a quick but fully fleshed out scenario with multiple endings and all for a price that is hard to beat (Free for those that preordered and $4.99 when it is eventually available to all gamers through the PSN Store). If you’re not a fan of Interactive Cinema games, and there actually is a large sect of gamers that aren’t, there’s no point in playing Heavy Rain or Heavy Rain Chronicles. For everyone else, you have a nice stand-alone package highlighting the best aspect of Quanticdream’s newest title. Let’s just hope these people who have jumped on the Heavy Rain bandwagon will now look at the inspirations and precursors to this game.

Appeal Factor: Great

10. Miscellaneous

The Taxidermist is exactly what i like to see in my downloadable titles. It’s cheap. It has a full storyline. It’s a stand-alone from the core game yet has subtle ties to the main one. it’s basically the best that Heavy Rain has to offer in a short little package that anyone can play even if they don’t have any real free time. It’s a streamlined fast-paced version of the core game highlighted the best aspects of the game and is free from most of the criticism the game has received. Plus I got to cut off someone’s wang with a chainsaw. Who could ask for anything more?

Miscellaneous Rating: Unparalleled

The Scores
Story: Enjoyable
Graphics: Great
Sound: Very Good
Control and Gameplay: Good
Replayability: Good
Balance: Very Good
Originality: Decent
Addictiveness: Great
Appeal Factor: Great
Miscellaneous: Unparalleled
FINAL SCORE: VERY GOOD GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Heavy Rain Chronicles Episode One: The Taxidermist is as fun to play as its title is a mouth full. This short stand-alone episodic content basically distills the core Heavy Rain game to its purest essence, highlighting the best aspects of the game while having very little of the elements people have chosen to criticize. Each playthrough is roughly thirty minutes long and there are five different endings that you can get. It’s a rewarding and captivating experience and people that pre-ordered Heavy Rain will be quite happy with this bonus. For those that didn’t preorder Heavy Rain, The Taxidermist will eventually be available for purchase in the PSN Store for $4.99. If you enjoyed the core game at all, you’ll want to plunk down your five spot as soon as this is available to everyone.

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Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week we are looking at the first 3-D weapon based fighting game series. Sony marketed the hell out of it, which is amusing because the game wasn’t a system exclusive and remixed version on the Sega Saturn and/or the PC contained more characters and stages. Still, a brand new shiny system combined with the massive amount of cash for advertising that Sony had helped the first game in this series to become a huge success. The PC version of the game even included Earthworm Jim (who was at his peak of popularity) as a hidden character. However, each successive game in the series failed to win the hearts of critics and gamers, and it is one of the few series where each game is thought to be worse than the previous one. Still there is name recognition and even nostalgia for some gamers when they hear the name Battle Arena Toshinden. This week for Diehard GameFAN staffers discuss what, if any, future the franchise still possesses.

Alexander Lucard – Stay Dead

I never liked Battle Arena Toshinden when it came out. I thought it was ugly and played like crap. Now granted, when this came out, I was knee deep in Street Fighter, Eternal Champions and Fatal Fury, so I personally thought this thing was the incarnation of everything that could possibly go wrong with a fighting game. It’s also why I am probably predisposed to pessimism towards any 3-D fighting series. Well, that and Eternal Champions 3 being cancelled, so Sega could sell more copies of the inferior Virtua Fighter.

I was shocked when people were raving about this game and this was probably my first experience with the realization that for most gamers, if it is shiny and new with a lot of marketing behind it, they will eat it up like the sheep they are without a thought for actual gameplay quality. As usual, when I tend to hate a game that many other gamers love, time proved I was simply ahead of the pack as not only did each successive game suck, but people started to realized they hadn’t been very objective when the first Battle Arena Toshinden came out. Much to their surprise and my schadenfreude, they realize the game sucked, that it had always sucked and so they moved on to loving some other awful game that they were told to like instead of thinking for themselves. Meanwhile I had been playing The King of Fighters and Darkstalkers. Ho ho ho. Like I said, schadenfreude.

Look, Battle Arena Toshinden has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. It makes things like Time Killers look good because there at least you can get the visual stimulation of limb-lopping. This is a series that is best left forgotten, but alas, Takara has announced that it is eventually coming to the Wii, but they said that in early 2008 and here we are in early 2010 without any further news, so perhaps Takara realized that the only thing to be gained from reviving this stink bomb was bad reviews and abject humilation.

Dave Olvera – Stay Dead

Battle Arena Toshinden needs to stay dead. In fact, time machines need to be invented and perfected because BAT is a god awful insult to fighting games and having it purged from history would be doing everyone a favor.

Battle Arena Toshinden was a hot property during the very early Playstation days (I will now abbreviate Playstation PSX, tipping off my age). The PSX had just been released and the platform needed an eye popping game to really start moving hardware and Battle Arena Toshinden was that game. While, by today’s standards, BAT looks like a regurgitated pile of pig feces, back in the middle 1990s, BAT was eye ball pokingly amazing in the looks department. BAT was that gold digging, bottled blond that you married for looks and then, after awhile through hindsight, turns into a decomposing Crypt Keeper looker that makes you question your own sanity and possible over indulgence in drinking.

Featuring 3-D polygons, anime hair and ring outs, BAT’s controls were stiff, characters lackluster and contribution to the fighting game genre was more puff over substance. BAT’s main gift to the world was to sell more PSXs, because I remember working retail and having people coo’ing and ahh’ing over the PSX BAT kiosk. I will admit, even I was impressed because I saw, in BAT, some of the future. Thankfully I also held onto my Genesis and SNES so I could play games that were better than the early PSX line up.

Toshinden is not a series that could be fixed with a simple face lift (the other games in the series showed this to be true). No, Toshinden has no heart or soul – just looks. What can Battle Arena Tonshinden offer to contemporary gamers? A few may recognize the name but, seriously, does it mean anything to those not in their late 20s/early 30s? Did Toshinden offer any new fighting game mechanics? Did it have any groundbreaking combination systems? Did it actually become a beautiful series all of the sudden? Is the cast memorable? Was Toshinden actually a good game, despite its flaws? No, not even remotely in the ballpark for any of these right now. BAT is a nostalgia trip for those who paint everything with the brush of beauty. Hindsight is most likely right: BAT is really a worthless piece of video game history. A game like BAT should remain dead and left in a sack in an unmarked grave. Its contribution to video gaming noted, but not celebrated.

Chris Bowen –Stay Dead

I remember how good Toshinden 1 was at the time. We thought the graphics were so amazing, that we forgot the fact that the gameplay really didn’t stand up well. Granted, that might be 2010 Bus speaking, because 1995 Bus was addicted. Then again, maybe it isn’t 2010 Bus speaking, because 1996 Bus wasn’t really impressed with Toshinden 2, and 1997 Bus hated 3’s guts. I grew so ambivalent on the series that I didn’t even know there was a Toshinden 4 until I looked up the name in Wikipedia for fact checking. Needless to say, I’m not exactly running to eBay for an import copy. Looking back, two things destroyed my love of Toshinden: getting over the fact that I was playing a 3-D arcade fighter on my Playstation, and the release of Tekken.

But this isn’t about the 90s, is it? This is about modern day, and how these games transfer over to a new release in 2010. So let’s look at what Toshinden can give us…

* A crappy fighting engine that was outdated on its second release, and blown out of the freaking water by Soul Calibur.
* Character designs that are Killer Instinct-level terrible.
* A franchise “name” that is regarded as overrated at best and reviled at worst

And finally…

* A set, solid 3-D fighting game market. Face it: this is Tekken and Soul Calibur’s turf. The more diehard 3-D fighting fans among us hang out with Virtua Fighter, whereas the otaku and those who like to mix their fighting with repressed sexual fantasies have Dead or Alive, if Tecmo can ever remember that it’s supposed to be a fighting game. Therefore, that’s four series that are on multiple installments and either active in the past couple of years or literally on vacation at the beach, all of whom are more successful, better regarded, and simply *better* than Toshinden.

Mark B. – Stay Dead

… sigh.

Okay, let’s be honest with each other here. There are exactly two reasons people remember Toshinden as a franchise: it was one of the first 3-D fighting game franchises on the market, and Sophia. The former means it will forever have a place in fighting game history, as in the beginning, it was really Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and Battle Arena Toshinden, and the latter means it will forever have a place in the boobie hall of fame because WOW Sophia was pandering to young boys everywhere. Leather body suit, huge knockers, and a WHIP as her weapon of choice. Yep. For its time, the first game wasn’t horrendous, as it kind of felt like what one would expect a 3-D Street Fighter clone would feel like, and weapon combat was a fairly new thing until Soul Calibur came out and showed us how much better such a concept could be. Bushido Blade kind of tried that too, though all it accomplished was showing me how much fun it is to be one-shot killed by a final boss fifteen times in a row, which is to say, not at all.

(Note: Bushido Blade can stay dead, too. Just so you know.)

However, it’s been over a decade since the franchise has seen a US release, largely because people stopped caring, and you know what? They were right to do so. Fighting games have evolved past what Toshinden was, and even when the game was popular it wasn’t anything exciting. The graphics were unimpressive, the gameplay was derivative, and the game has nothing AND I MEAN NOTHING to distinguish itself from the hundreds of other franchises on the market. Soul Calibur has weapon-based combat down to a science, Street Fighter has made its own playable 3-D comeback, and I’ve seen more huge chested females in fighting games in the past ten years than a chiropractor in California. Nostalgia can only go so far for any franchise, and Toshinden offers nothing to be nostalgic about in the first place.

I’d like to make one final observation before we wrap this up, however. Takara, the folks behind the original Toshinden series, are actually looking at re-launching the brand, though it may not be affiliated with the original games in any way. As of this point the project is strictly TBA as far as any sort of release details are concerned, but this isn’t why the project bears mentioning. No, the project bears mentioning because Takara has nothing to do with the actual development this time around. No, they’ve handed off the development duties to DreamFactory. DreamFactory, for those who are scratching their heads in confusion, is responsible for some fighting and action games that are all over the place as far as quality is concerned, including Kakuto Chojin, Crimson Tears, The Bouncer and >Ehrgeiz.

They also developed Tobal.

So, in conclusion, I don’t like this game anymore, and I’m going to go drink until I forget I read that.

End Result -

Stay Dead: 4
Sequel: 0
Spin-Off: 0
Start Over: 0

Wow, when we hate something we really hate something. I think this actually achieved more rancor than Bubsy. I think it’s pretty safe to say that no one hear wants to see this series resurface and if it ever does, you can bet the staff forums will be filled with posts of, “Not it!.”

Join us next week as we look at the red headed stepchild of the Square-Enix’s “World of Ivalice.” It’s the only one without the words Final Fantasy in the title and plays so different from S-E’s most prominent series that it’s often considered a brand name of one. We’ll see if there’s any life in this series. See you then!

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How do you receive one of these valuable codes? All you have to do is become a fan of the official Diehard GameFAN Facebook page and post a comment to our City of Eternals discussion thread and we’ll send you a special link that will put you straight in the game. Act fast, though, as we will distribute our codes on a first-come, first-served basis until we are out.

Also be sure to check City of Eternals‘ official Facebook page for more information about the game.

Here’s a PR blurb from ohai for those of you unfamilar with the game:

“In City of Eternals, instead of watching vampires, players can become them, fighting undead monsters, going on creepy quests, and exploring New Valencia, a modern city secretly ruled by four Vampire houses. Players can create their own coven of Vampires (called an “entourage”), turn themselves into an ultimate Vampire warrior, even develop craft skills that enhance their undead lives. (For example, players can make themselves a “fashionista,” and customize their Vampire outfit to make it the talk of the town.) City of Eternals gamers can own and furnish their own home, befriend fellow Vampire players – or even romance them, by designating them your Blood Mate.

ohai is the developer of the first true massively multiplayer online (MMO) games for social networks, and offers MMOs for everyone. City of Eternals uses patented Flash technology that is installed standard on 99% of Net-connected computers, making it easy for casual gamers and more experienced MMO fans to jump right into the game, with no barrier to entry.”

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Despite its name, Hit Maker is not a developer that has produced any real hits. Most reviewers haven’t been kind towards their titles, but I have to admit Blade Dancer wasn’t bad for a $4.99 game, which is what I paid for it when Nippon Ichi put it on sale in the Playstation Store. As well our own Aileen Coe gave a fairly positive review to A Witch’s Tale and we tend to be one of the harsher gaming publications around. I also liked A Witch’s Tale for its innovation and weirdness.

Now here we are with Hit Maker’s fourth game, Last Rebellion. Even before the game was officially out, people were badmouthing it and some were even proclaiming it the worst game of the year, which shows that said publication hadn’t experience the hell that is Walk It Out. The weirdest things I heard was the bitching that the game used static images for dialogue instead of fully rendered CGI. This confused me greatly because MOST RPG’s have gone that route. I grew up in the 8 and 16 bit era so this is pretty standard for me. I mean the old Sega Genesis Shadowrun didn’t have CGI or animated cinematics and it’s still one of the ten best RPG’s ever released. Disgaea didn’t have either of those things and it won our 2003 Game of the Year. So I went into this game assuming that these complainers were only concerned with how a game looks rather than how it actually PLAYED (which is both stupid and sadly how many gaming publications actually look at products these days) or that these were younger people who have probably never played quality RPG’s like The Bard’s Tale, Ultima IV or Shining Force that earned their status as legends through gameplay and story.

So did that turn out to be the case? Was Last Rebellion actually a good game that just happened to be retro in look and feel? Was this a case of judging a budget niche game by Final Fantasy fanboys (the second creepiest scourge in gaming). Or did it turn out that Last Rebellion was indeed a pile of pure unadulterated suck?

Let’s Review

1. Story

Last Rebellion actually has a pretty innovative storyline but it just isn’t told very well. You have two warring gods: Formival, the god of life and Meiktilla, the god of death. Now this is a fairly common and trite plot point in game. What’s interesting here is that the god of life is the bad guy and the god of death is the good girl. You see, Formival has gone nuts and just started letting everyone come back to life. This means the world is now heavily overpopulated and there is more crime, war and strife than ever. The other thing is that these people are coming back to life in their own bodies, which makes them undead and crazy. Whoops. So the god of death has stepped up to be the hero of humanity by creating two classes of people. The first is Blades, which can slay bodies and the second are Sealers who can keep souls from returning to life. This is all pretty interesting so far, right?

Well your main character is Nine, a Blade and the adopted son of the King of the region. Both Nine and the King are assassinated by Alfred, the other adopted son of the King who is actually the son of the original King who was slain by Nine’s stepfather in battle. A bit complicated, but it makes sense. Alfred’s a necromancer that has just been waiting all these years to get revenge on his father’s murderer. He also has a crazy plan to bring some powerful demon thingy into the world to wreak havoc on the world.

Nine is brought back to life by a forbidden spell performed by a Sealer names Aisha. Now the two share one body and only one can be active on the world at one time. The two set off on a quest to seal away a powerful demon and slay Alfred. Again, this is all pretty interesting and quite different from the standard RPG, right?

Well the problem is that the story isn’t told very well beyond the initial concepts. Characterization is all over the place. Nine is a bad ass warrior one second and a whiny punk the next. At times he is clever and at times he is portrayed as an idiot who attacks first and thinks second. These wild personality flip-flops are seen usually in the same scene, so it’s a bit hard to describe any of the characters save for “poorly written.”

The story progresses in a very linear fashion, although you do have room to look around and explore the very large areas in each section of the game. You can also go back to places you’ve already been to collect treasure chests. At the end of the day though, the plot is original, but would have been far more successful if the dialogue and story scenes had been written by someone else. There was a lot of potential here but Last Rebellion just didn’t live up to it. What’s here isn’t awful – it’s just all over the place.

Story Rating: Decent

2. Graphics

Last Rebellion is neither the worst looking PS3 game I’ve had to play nor the worst looking RPG. It looks like a high end PS2 in regards to backgrounds and monster designs. There isn’t a lot of variety to the latter, but they are quite different looking from the usual bad guy fare in a RPG. I really loved the character designs and I was a bit saddened that the coolest looking one, a Lovecraftian-esque bad guy I thought was going to be behind the whole thing was just the first boss in the game. The worst character design was Alfred as he looked like a stupid yutz in a hoodie ala the main character from Prototype.

It is true that there aren’t any fully animated cut scenes in the game. Rather, everything is told in classic RPG style where you have various character portraits or still images portraying the scene while text )that is fully voice acted) scrolls across the screen. This is a bit old fashioned, but I have to admit I liked it. It had a nice retro feel to it and this was common even in PS2, Xbox and GameCube titles, so it should be neither a surprise nor a disappointment to see this a generation later. There will always be a place for this style of RPG storytelling and quite honestly, I hope it never goes away.

I really enjoyed the cut scene art. The art is both beautiful and vibrant. I also liked that the further into the game you get the more “loading screen” art you unlock. It’s all very pretty and I loved the range of artists Hit Maker employed for these “unlockables.” There’s just only one problem –very nice static art is easy to do. Sure it’s VERY pretty since the game is in full 1080, but static art is pretty easy to do. I could upload some high resolution screenshots of Kevin Maguire art as the background for my PS3 and it wouldn’t be graphically impressive because it’s STATIC IMAGES. In terms of pure graphics, Last Rebellion probably should have been a PS2 game. If it had, it would definitely be getting higher reviews than it has been and it would certainly score higher in this category, but at the end of the day what we have here is a decent looking game. It’s not graphically impressive, nor it is as ugly as say Untold Kingdoms or even bits of Disgaea 3. it’s just an average looking game with some really gorgeous static artwork.

Graphics Rating: Decent

3. Sound

This is a mixed bad as well. I really adored the soundtrack. There were some really fun and catchy tracks to this game and I was impressed by how original and FUN the music was. This was one area where Last Rebellion actually really shined.

Then there is the voice acting. I have to admit I went into this pretty positive when the opening cinematic (which is just static images and gameplay footage) started up and the game was narrated by the godly Michael McConnohie aka the original Vampire Hunter D voice actor. I also remember him as Leonard Dawson from Golgo 13 and a ton of classic animated characters from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Modern gamers might know him as Seth from Street Fighter IV, Kano from Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe or Astaroth from the Soul Calibur games. He’s also been the narrator for the last few Castlevania games.

Then there is the rest of the voice acting. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Atonal, flat and unemotional. Nine’s actor is probably the best out of the rest of the cast, but that’s like saying getting the flu is better than getting HIV. Aisha’s actress is so bad, I was wishing for just scrolling text. Other actors like Alfred’s the King, and Jacob are slightly better, but not by much. I applaud the game for being fully voiced acted, especially on a budget price, but this is one of those times where the game would have been better off silent.

So you have a great score and some awful voice acting. In my opinion the two balance each other out, so I’ll call it a thumbs in the middle. You can adjust the audio to turn off the voice acting, and that might be the best call.

Sound Rating: Mediocre

4. Control and Gameplay

For me, gameplay is the most important piece of a game. I generally dislike turn based RPG’s because the gameplay is so boring. You select an action, the character walks forward, swing a weapon or casts a spell and then returns. You can practically play these games in your sleep. This is why my preferred turn based RPG are games like Shadow Hearts; because they would do something to revitalize the otherwise most boring form of RPG there is. With that said, Last Rebellion has one of the best turn based battle engines in the history of the genre and I absolutely adored it. It made me think/plan/plot as much as a tactical RPG like Shining Force or Ogre Tactics and it sucked me in for the entire game. Had this engine been saddled with a prettier game, or even a better told story, you’d see people extolling this thing as the highly innovative game it is. Now battles can be rather slow due to all the plotting and this is definitely a turn based RPG for the type of gamer who would normally prefer Fire Emblem or Dragon Force, but that’s exactly the type of gamer I am.

When combat starts, both Nine and Aisha get one turn per round. Now one turn doesn’t mean one action. In fact you can go as many times as you want in a round as long as you have Chain Points. One attack = one chain point. You can use one chain point per each of the attackable body parts on a monster. So if a monster has six body parts you can attack, you can attack it six times per character with that turn. When you hit an enemy you leave a stamp. Stamps can be from one to five rounds long. Stamps are focus points for magic. A magic attack only requires a single Chain Point, but you get one hit per stamp. As such, magic can get you a lot of damage in that single Chain Point. This means you have to plans your attacks between Nine and Aisha properly to ensure maximum damage.

However there’s one additional piece to combat that truly makes this engine amazing. The goal is to hit all of the body parts in a specific order. If you hit a piece in the proper order, the screen will say “BINGO” and you’ll get to do critical damage. If you hit several bingos in a row, it will be a combo and net you extra experience points. The catch is that you don’t KNOW the order in which to strike. It’s trial and error until you get the bingo and then it is retained in your characters memory.

Let’s do an example. Say I have a monster that I can hit in the head, right arm, left arm, chest, right leg and left leg. Let’s then say I hit those parts in that exact order. I get a bingo for the head and chest. Then when my next turn comes up, there will be a number 1 by the head and a number 4 by the chest. That is your reminder that those are the proper places in the chain. Now you will just have to figure out the rest of the order. Things can get pretty complicated with some monsters having ten (or more) body parts to strike. You don’t have to strike them all in one turn, or even in the correct order if you don’t want to. It just means you won’t be maximizing your damage

Another thing to keep in mind is that some body parts have their name in deep red. These are danger areas. If you strike this part of the body out of the correct order, it will incite a berserker rage in the monster and let them do extra damage to you on their turn. Do you take a chance and hit that part, or do you leave it alone until you’ve figured out the rest of the order? It’s up to you.

I loved this system. I can’t stress that enough. When playing Last Rebellion, I have a notebook and a pen to keep track of all the combinations I’ve tried and so that i can figure out the order to strike. I haven’t gotten to use pen and paper since I used to map old SSI Dungeons and Dragons games like Eye of the Beholder. I love this aspect of digital RPG’s and it’s something I didn’t realize how much I sorely missed until now. This my friends, is an engine for old school RPG nuts. People that remember back when these games actually involved ROLE PLAYING and having to use your mind and wits in order to get through a game. I love this. I truly do.

Last Rebellion might truly be a perfect example of a video gaming generational gap. Did you use to love the Wizardry series or write down the solutions for games like The 7th Guest or Maniac Mansion? Then this is for you. Are you the type of gamer that prefers the long cinematic RPG’s that are more interactive movie? Then this probably isn’t for you. Personally, the engine makes this an amazing game and if Hitmaker could get a proper story and some better graphics out of their games to be coupled with this engine, they just might have their first critical success on their hands.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Great

5. Replayability

Replay value is the biggest flaw in Last Rebellion. It’s extremely linear, there is nothing special that happens after you beat the game and you can’t even customize your characters. When you level up, it’s with set hit point, magic point and chain point increases, so everything is predetermined. With nothing to explore save the large levels that you have in the game, this really is a one and done title.

Another thing worth noting, nearly all the trophies in the game are story based, meaning you should have nearly all of them by the time you beat the game, which is only a dozen hours long. The others are earned by killing specific creatures and they are pretty easy to obtain. As such, this is one of the easier titles to earn a Platinum Trophy in and it’ll end up being my second, with the first being Bakugan Battle Brawlers.

There really is no replay value to this unless, like myself, you love the engine. Even then, once I Platinum this game, I won’t be coming back for more, as an engine alone isn’t enough to draw me back.

Replayability Rating: Dreadful

6. Balance

Last Rebellion is a well balanced game but in a very unique and odd way. The first time you fight a monster will always be your hardest encounter with it. This is because you’ll be spending that battle trying to figure out the correct order to attack your opponent in. Then as you whittle down the body part order, you’ll find repeat battles to be much easier. Once you have the order in fact, you’ll never lose to that monster, even if there are six or seven of them. Yet when you don’t have the order, a battle with a single monster can be death if you keep striking a red body part out of order. This is nicely done and so there was challenge at the start of things when you need it most, but as you grow as a player, things get much easier. This is a game that truly rewards you for thinking. Boss battles are the same. The first few rounds will be your hardest but as you get the correct order of attacks down, it will go a lot easier. Again, this is why I suggest pen and paper by your side.

Now with all this in mind, Last Rebellion is a pretty easy game. Sure there were a few challenges here and there but I actually found say a Yellow Jellos to be harder than the first boss, and they were a rank and file monster in the same area as said boss. You’ll find this to frequently be the case. Bosses aren’t hard –they just take a long time to kill.

That being said, there are two other things worth discussing here. The first is that the game actively prevents you from grinding. I hate munchkin gaming and so I’m glad to see this done here. Once you get too powerful for certain enemies, they stop giving you experience points. This means you’ll just be battling to waste time, so you’ll have to move on to a harder area and earn your XP. I wish more games did this.

Second, at the end of a battle you have to make sure Aisha seals the monster corpses, or they will return to life and you’ll have to fight them all over again. You can purposely let them revive for more combo points that generates into bonus XP, but it’s always better to seal them and get it over with.

My only problem with balance is that enemy encounter points respawn infinitely. So if you kill something, you have to keep moving as a new creature will respawn in that area. This kind of goes against the whole “seal monsters so they don’t come back to life” aspect, and it’s also annoying because you’ll have to backtrack frequently through areas where you can no longer earn XP and have to waste time fighting scrubs for no experience points or rewards. Lame.

Overall, this is a nicely balanced title and it’s nice to see a turn based game that actually rewards you for thinking. It is a little too easy for my tastes, and the constant respawning enemies can be annoying, but this is still another area where Last Rebellion more or less succeeds.

Balance Rating: Above Average

7. Originality

In terms of plot kernels and the engine, Last Rebellion is one of the more original titles I’ve played in a while. Everything about this game is so outside the norm that it will probably be outside a lot of gamer’s comfort zone. I really enjoyed all the new ideas that this game brought to the table even if I didn’t think it was executed all that well.

Although Hit Maker doesn’t make critical or mainstream successes, one can at least say they’re always trying new things and putting out games with features, modes and engines that haven’t been done before. I’d rather play something new that might now be all that good than yet another clone of a successful but predictable title.

Even with all the negatives about Last Rebellion in mind, it’s a pretty innovative title, for good and for bad.

Originality Rating: Good

8. Addictiveness

I really enjoyed my time with Last Rebellion in spite of its shortcomings. I loved the engine and the almost puzzle game aspect it entailed. I referred to the battle system as “SRPG meets Sudoku” to fellow DHGF’er Chris Bowen.

I realize that for most Turn Based RPG fans, the system is too slow and too complicated. Most SRPG fans won’t like that you can only control a single character at a time instead of a whole army. Most younger gamers will find this too alien to what they are used to playing. Me though? I couldn’t put this thing down as much like the Judgment ring, this is exactly the weird sort of thing I needed to make me truly care about a turn based RPG.

Addictiveness Rating: Good

9. Appeal Factor

Well, judging on the initial reviews and opinions of this game, it’s safe to say Last Rebellion is the epitome of a niche title. I like it, but I’m also astute enough to realize I’ll probably be in the minority. The story had potential, but didn’t live up to it. The graphics look like a nice PS2 game rather than a PS3 game and the game is definitely geared towards diehard longtime WESTERN RPG fans, even though it is a JRPG. This kind of means it will be ignored and/or scorned by all. Still, it’s a budget game and for $29.99, you’re getting a short (10-15 hour) RPG that would have been a hit had it been for the PS2 five years ago. Sadly too many people are forgetting this is a budget title and you’re kind of getting what you pay for here. It’ll be a rare game that is satisfied with Last Rebellion, I can’t deny that, but I can also say I enjoyed it and I know that msot of the staff here at Diehard GameFAN actually would too, if only for the battle engine. If you’re unsure, remember it’s already at budget pricing and it’s not going to get much lower. Plus it’s probably a better buy than White Knight Chronicles (another game I enjoyed in spite of its flaws) which costs twice as much.

Appeal Factor: Bad

10. Miscellaneous

You don’t see a lot of budget RPG’s these days. In fact you rarely see them at all. Off the top of my head I can think of Monster Hunter and Eternal Eyes and that’s about it. For $29.99, you’re getting an engine that is better than what is in most full priced Turn Based RPG’s, but you’re also get low rent voice acting and graphics in addition to a plot that had promise but just couldn’t live up to it. When I factor in that this is half the cost of most PS3 games I have to admit I enjoyed this on a fun to cost ration more than several full price RPGs for the system. That’s really what matters. In the end, it comes down to what you care about most in a game. If you care about the actual engine or gameplay, this is probably the RPG for you. If you care about story, graphics and voice acting, then you should probably look elsewhere. If there is any real scorn to be had, it’s that places like GameStop are charging ten to twenty dollars over the MSRP for this.

Miscellaneous Rating: Decent

The Scores
Story: Decent
Graphics: Decent
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Great
Replayability: Dreadful
Balance: Above Average
Originality: Good
Addictiveness: Good
Appeal Factor: Bad
Miscellaneous: Decent
FINAL SCORE: DECENT GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Although I quite enjoyed my time with Last Rebellion, I also realize that only a very small audience will appreciate what this game does right. The graphics look more like a higher end PS2 game than a PS3 title while both the voice acting and story fail to impress. The two highlights of the game are the excellent soundtrack and the battle engine, which is the most innovative and original turn based system I’ve encountered since the Judgment Ring in Shadow Hearts. The game is neither the worst game of 2010 so far (that’s Walk It Out) nor even the worst RPG of the year (that’s Sands of Destruction). Instead this is a game that will appeal to a nearly extinct sub-genre of RPG fans: the type of gamers who love Wizardry, Ultima, The Bard’s Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Death Knights of Krynn and other PC style RPG’s from the 1980’s where you had pen and paper with you to make notations, graph maps or quickly solve puzzles in order to move ahead in the game. You’ll be doing something similar with the battle engine, so if those aforementioned titles bring a smile to your face than Last Rebellion is a game for you. If you prefer your turn based RPG’s to be things like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, then you’ll want to steer far away from this. Either way , whether you like the game or not, one can’t deny Last Rebellion is one of the more original RPG’s to be released in some time.

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Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week we are looking at the most famous, most award-winning, most critically acclaimed, and best selling female character in the history of video gaming. She’s had more games that Jill Valentine and Lara Croft put together and can boast one of the most played franchises out of any video game series ever. She’s had a successful cartoon series, two popular game shows and just saying her name reminds tens of millions of gamers of not only her titles that combined education with entertainment but a song that is hard to get out of your head once you’ve heard it. Click on the YouTube Video to the right for the appropriate soundtrack for this article as you join ten Diehard GameFAN staffers as they talk about Carmen Sandiego and what should be done with her franchise, which hasn’t seen a new release in North American in six years. Do it Rockapella!

Dave Olvera – Start Over

The world could use another Carmen Sandiego game, so the game series should start over.

The United States, as a whole, is quite ignorant of other nations and cultures. Carmen Sandiego games helped kids learn about the history and nations of the world. You can make it a Phoenix Wright-like adventure, add some RPG elements or just keep the old format. Start over with a more modern coat of paint, but don’t change the core of the series.

With willful ignorance and partisan ideology running rampant, a Carmen Sandiego game could be a bit of help in having people learn about things beyond their immediate world. While I only briefly played the games, I respected what the aim of the series was and how it tried to accomplish its mission. Truly, with so much anti-intellectualism in the US, a revival could really be a good thing.

AJ Hess – Start Over

There are a ton of ways to reboot this franchise. The best might be an online game show, or a local party game. I see the way to go as playing against four or five people online answering geopolitical questions and roaming a cartoon globe as a great way to spend some hours with the remote.It might even help kids learn something, which was part of the originalreason for the game.

Aaron Sirois – Start Over

“Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina…”

I’ll admit it. I loved the old TV show, the old game show, the board games, and even the computer games. Carmen Sandiego was a great part of my early childhood.

That’s why I think the series should be reinvented for a modern age. Detective games are back on the rise on the DS, so the time is now for Carmen to entertain new generation of junior sleuths.

Somebody get on it!

Mohammad Al-Sadoon – Start Over
I recall playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in America is Carmen Sandeigo almost religiously as a kid, mostly because they came free with our family’s very first PC back in 1995 (or was it 94?) and I still have the disks lying around somewhere.

It was one of the first educational games I played that was entertaining rather than mind numbingly boring. It did indeed make you feel like a detective hunting down cartoon criminals, but then they had to release endless spinoffs including Carmen Sandiego Math or some other such nonsense.

Wiiware, DSiware or perhaps even iPhone could be an excellent platform for a reboot for Carmen as the gameplay style would probably be considered “too casual” for other systems.

As for using the internet to cheat? Who cares? If kids are usingGgoogle for reasons other than porn and learning something about the world they live in, then the game has fulfilled its purpose.

Mark B. – Start Over

Anything I learned about the world when I was a kid, I learned through the Carmen Sandiego series. She stole things in the US, she stole things around the world. Hell, she even built a time machine and stole things from the past. That right there, is dedication to the craft. She was an evil criminal mastermind, one of the greatest thieves ever, and she was totally dedicated to teaching you about the world and stuff. Carmen’s like some sort of highly educated, highly capable female Riddler, where instead of leaving you weird puzzles about doors not being doors, she leaves you notes telling you she’s going to be hanging out in Stalin’s birthplace.

How can you not love that?

I have no idea what happened to the series, but the last game in the franchise I’m aware of was The Secret of the Stolen Drums, and HOLY CRAP was that a terrible idea. “Let’s take a series based on solving puzzles and learning and make it into an action game!” If there is a just God, whoever came up with that idea is shining shoes for a living. With his tongue. The point is, yeah, the franchise kind of died (of shame) after that, which is a shame. I’m kind of sad to know that no one is doing anything with the license, as it was not only a highly profitable series, but it was a good series to boot.

Given the choice between making a sequel and starting over, I’d sooner start over, if only because a modernized Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego would be great to have. You could branch off into the various spin-off titles from there and modernize Carmen and her gang as needed while still keeping the core gimmicks intact. Heck, you don’t even need to give Carmen a gang at all anymore. With technology having advanced the way it has, you could just keep having Carmen get away at the last second all on her own to make her even more of an unstoppable thieving juggernaut. “Oops, this one was a robot.” “Aww, this one was her highly unstable clone.” “Huh, turns out this one was a hologram.” By the time you caught her you’d be aching to put her behind bars so bad that you’d break all sense of composure and give yourself a high five, then run outside and demand that random strangers congratulate you for your efforts in preventing the theft of the Statue of Liberty.

Okay, so that one got away from me a little, but the point is that I think we should have more Carmen Sandiego games and I feel very bad for you if you don’t.

Alexander Lucard – Start Over

I loved both the original series and the video game. Any game that tested my intelligence as a child was one I gravitated to, so most of my PC gaming experience was split between old RPG’s like “The Bard’s Tale or Wizardry and the Carmen Sandiego titles. I also really enjoyed the game show even though I was in high school at the time. I liked Geography and History so the game show appealed to me and even to this day, I can’t get the song out of my head after I hear it. DAMN YOU ROCKAPELLA!

As Mark mentioned in his piece, the last game to hit North America was a clunk action-platformer that tanked horribly because both the developers and publishers forgot what the entire appeal of the Carmen Sandiego series was all about. It’s actually not the last game to come out bearing Carmen’s name. In early 1999, a brand new developer, Strass Productions, gave us ? Mais Ou Se Cache CARMEN SANDIEGO? Mystere Au Bout De Monde. Although I can find neither screenshots nor any real depth about the game, it appears to be a return to the classic Carmen Sandiego style, with a tie-in from the cartoon series and Professor Layton style puzzles. I’d love to see this come to North America, and supposedly there is an English translation out there, but none of the European online gaming stores carry it or ever have heard of it. My hope is that some publisher reads this, realizes the love diehard and casual gamers alike still have for the series and brings this game stateside.

What I’d really like to see is a fresh start with the classic style and gameplay. You’d play as an ACME detective and you slowly climb through the ranks of the agency as you track down members of Carmen’s gangs with their punny names like Rob M. Blind, Ruth Less, and more. I want the exact core game from my childhood with updated graphics and questions for the modern geo-political climate. It would sell, it would be popular and honestly, it’s really needed. It’s one of those games that would work on a PC, console, or portable system and it would be a nice reminder of when people didn’t have to separate “casual” and “diehard” gamers into two separate categories because they all played the same things. Carmen Sandiego’s franchise is one of those series and honestly, if you don’t have love in your heart for the cast and characters of these titles, than you are lacking either your heart or a soul –possibly both.

The other option I could get behind is a game show style title. This would be similar to Buzz!, but would play out exactly like the old TV show complete with the cheesy animation and catchy tunes. You could play it with four of your friends either online or in your home and try and take down Carmen and her gang. Turning the old 1990’s game show into a video game would be exceptionally east to do, and I’d love to see it if people won’t go back to the formula that worked.

Christopher Bowen – Sequel

The Carmen Sandiego games have always been very good, because they combine good gameplay elements with geographical learning. I learned a lot from those games playing them on an old Macintosh running OS/6, and I think kids today can learn a lot, too.

They’ve tried to bring those games back a few times – I remember playing a more modern version on Gametap before Gametap started to suck – but they always struck me as… different. Cheezy. They tried adding characters other than Carmen and the villians to the game. It came off as a bad Saturday Morning cartoon. They don’t need that. Hell, they could remake the games with the old graphics and interface for all I care. The game is good enough.

There’s only one weakness that Carmen Sandiego has today: Google. It’s much easier to cheat nowadays when we have Google and Wikipedia at our fingertips than it was back in the old days, when we had to break out encyclopedias. So the game would probably be gamed in a sense.

But who cares? Anyone that’s willing to cheat is missing the point. Fact is, Carmen Sandiego would be perfect for schools, especially if the developer can make Mac and Linux versions. I’d slap that sucker on an Edubuntu install in a heartbeat.

Aileen Coe – Sequel

This was one of the games I used to play often on the old Apples at school as a kid. It managed to be entertaining while you actually learned something, and I loved playing detective and piecing clues together. I’d also regularly watch the game show and the cartoon.

With the resurge of the edutainment genre (Oregon Trail, the Brain Age and My ___ Coach games, and others of their ilk), this would fit in perfectly as long as they stick more closely with the original formula than the most recent games did. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t released a version on the DSiware or Wiiware service already, seeing as how the aforementioned Oregon Trail got a DSiware release.

Branden Chowen – Sequel

There were always a select few games that I would wait for my dad to boot up the old PC to play, and the words Camen Sandiego came at the end of at least three of those titles. I started off with Where In the USA is Carmen Sandiego?, got pissed off countless times with Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and then learned about the first sewage systems in Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego? Mind you, I couldn’t do much in these games without my Dad or my trusty atlas (which came packed in with the first two games), but I had a blast. Not only was I having fun with the zany characters (I don’t use that word often) and colorful graphics, but I was actually learning something! In all honesty, I learned more from Carmen Sandiego than I did from any trail through Oregon I’ve ever traversed.

Nowadays, more and more kids are playing video games, and a Carmen Sandiego sequel would fit perfectly next to the other edutainment titles like Big Brain Academy.

Come to think of it, between Carmen Sandiego and Zoombinis, it’s no wonder I’m so damn smart today

Widro – Spin-Off

At the time, the Carmen Sandiego franchise was a top notch game andTV show that taught world geography to kids. For an educational title, it was unique and fun, and reached crossover appeal as a game to play not just for the educational purposes. As such, it still has nostalgic value with some core gamers, and could be used in that aspect for a new game. Also as gamers who grew up with the Carmen Sandiego game and song have kids of their own, it is a great opportunity to reintroduce the brand to get new kids a taste of the world of Carmen Sandiego.

End Result –
Start Over: 6
Sequel: 3
Spin-Off: 1
Stay Dead: 0

It’s rather telling when we have more staff that would rather wax philosophically about Carmen Sandiego than titles like Legend of Dragoon or Double Dragon. Needless to say the Carmen Sandiego games are amongst the most popular, successful and critically acclaimed titles of all time, and it’s a damn shame to see the series lie dormant here in North America. This is also one of the rare few times where someone hasn’t wanted a series to Stay Dead, which shows just how beloved it really is. Hopefully some publisher will be smart enough to revive this franchise with the same love and passion that Broderbund Software put into it. Until then though, people will have to be content with the knowledge that Carmen Sandiego is out there somewhere – it’s just she’s really hard to find.

Next week we’ll be looking at a fighting game franchise that spawned four titles and was also the only fighting game to ever feature Earthworm Jim as a playable character. See you then!

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The first Endless Ocean is one of my favorite games of this console generation. I raved about it in January of 2008, and at the end of the year, Endless Ocean would go on to win our “Nintendo Wii Game of the Year” and “All-Ages Game of the Year” awards in our 2008 Gaming Awards. It was also my #3 game of 2008, (Behind Valkyria Chronicles and The Lost Crown).

Here we are, two years later, with the second game in the series. It’s been released at a budget price of $29.99, and some come bundled with a free copy of Wii Speak, which will allow you to talk to other gamers playing this title as long as you both have a Wii Speak. This is a great way to move both products since you’re getting a fantastic deal. At least on the surface. After all, there are only five other games besides this one that are Wii Speak compatible (Uno, The Conduit, NBA 2K10, NHL: 2K10 and Animal Crossing: City Folk). I have neither owned, nor even played any of those games, which makes Wii Speak a nice bargain to be thrown in with EO:BW, but ultimately an object that will just take up space.

It’s rare you see a Nintendo title with budget pricing. After all, many of their games are actually slightly above the average price for a game on one of their systems. We see this most often on the DS where Nintendo first party games go for $34.99 while third party titles tend to go for $29.99. Is this a subtle warning from Nintendo, an obvious fear that it won’t move many copies due to an overt lack of violence, or is it an unexpected gift, giving gamers a title that is superior to 95% of the titles we’ve received this console generation regardless of system, yet at half the price?

Let’s Review

1. Story/Modes

There’s more of a story to Blue World than we had in the previous Endless Ocean. Here you’ll be a college student getting their degree in folklore. You take a leave of absence from college to join up with the L&L Diving Service so you can pursue the legend of “the Song of the Dragons” which turns out to involve a 19th century castle that sank to the bottom of the ocean. As you attempt to solve this mystery by diving for clues and relics, you’ll make new friends of both human and aquatic nature.

The core aspects of Endless Ocean remain the same though. You’ll be teaching tricks to dolphins, swimming to serene music and playing an otherwise relaxing and almost Zen-like game. The game has numerous subquests to play through, ranging from cleaning up fish to teaming up with a certain marine life form to clear boulders. Most of all though, the game is an open ended blissful underwater adventure where you swim around and identify over 100 types of marine life in all their shapes, variety, and glory.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I love the sheer amount of knowledge you get from this game. The more you interact with a species, the more real life information about it will be unlocked. The game is as educational as it is beautiful, and I can’t stress how much that aspect means to me. I loved seeing a strange new creature or learning the habits of a Cormorant or Mahi-Mahi. You can also take pictures of things underwater and store them to an SD card and even buy items to customize your own personal island paradise.

There are a few things from the original that I strongly miss. First is the fish petting. As silly as it sounded, man was popping in the first Endless Ocean and petting some fish for an hour soothing and oh so relaxing. Here you don’t have that option. You swim with the fish and sometimes feed them or shoot them with a healing beam that can also be used to drive off various predatory animals like sharks. I also miss the dive requests from tourists. Here you’ll be doing salvage missions instead, which just aren’t as fun.

I enjoyed this game and found the characters and new story line to be interesting, but so much of the game was exactly like the original – just not as good. There is some new stuff added and the game is larger than most RPG’s, but I actually preferred the stuff they took out to the new options, so it’s slightly disappointing. Endless Ocean: Blue World is still one of the two best games I’ve played in 2010 so far (along with Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom), but it is about a half step below the original title.

Story/Modes Rating: Great

2. Graphics

My god is this game beautiful. All of the animals are extremely detailed and have such lifelike animation, one would swear they were real if they didn’t know better. At times the footage can look like something right out of a nature documentary. It’s not quite Afrika beautiful, but it’s damn close. The animals, the water, the backgrounds, the lush scenery. Everything is amazing and you’ll have trouble believing that this isn’t a high definition game. It’s that good looking.

The one and only downfall to the visuals are the human models. They are a little out of place with the rest of the visual quality and at times, they can even be pretty hard on the eyes when compared to the rest of the game. Nancy and GG are the worst, and they look like early PS2 models rather than mid-gen Wii graphics. They’re not bad mind you. In some other game they’d be enjoyable for what they are. Compared to the high quality of the rest of the graphics though, it just pull things down. Thankfully 90-95% of the game is underwater so you’ll spend your time looking as stunning visuals rather than creepy people.

Graphics Rating: Great

3. Sound

When one thinks of the first Endless Ocean, they can’t help but gravitate towards Hayley Westenra’s “Prayer.” That song was so majestic and sublime it charmed nearly everyone. The rest of the soundtrack was equally amazing and it was one of the best auditory experiences I’ve ever had with a video game. It would send chills down my spine. It was THAT GOOD.

Unfortunately, the soundtrack in Blue World isn’t as powerful. It’s wonderful, but gone are the straight pure Celtic tracks that exuded relaxation and bliss. I miss them terribly and Blue World’s soundtrack is a bit of a disappointment compared to the original. Still, taken on its own, the music is serene and beautifully done. The tracks fit the calming atmosphere of the game nicely and it really is a wonderful soundtrack; it’s just that the original was as close to perfect as it gets, that anything else would be a letdown by comparison. If you haven’t played the original, you’ll find a compelling and almost haunting set of songs to guide you on your journey through the otherwise silent abyss.

There is no voice acting in Blue World, at least for human characters. It’s silent scrolling text here. However the animals do make noises and they are recordings ripped straight from the animals themselves. Birds tweet, whales sing, dolphins make their weird but charming noises and everything sounds as if they are truly alive. It’s small things like this that just scream quality and Arika has done another masterful job here.

So yes, diehard fans of the original Endless Ocean will find the new soundtrack a bit lacking in regards to both power and passion, but it’s wonderful in its own right and something I’d happily have a CD or MP3’s of for when I am working out or on a long car trip.

Sound Rating: Great

4. Control and Gameplay

So far I’ve stated that the original game has been superior to Blue World in all aspects so far. Well here is one area where the new game actually outdoes the original. In my review of the original game, I did say that the control scheme was the Achilles Heel of the game due to some strange mapping on the Wiimote. Well, that’s more or less true here as we have even more controls but the same amount of buttons on the Wiimote. This can make things a bit unwieldy, especially when you are trying to go from feeding a sea horse to needing to fend off a Tiger Shark. Every single button on the Wiimote has one or more uses and it can get a bit unwieldy.

So, with this in mind, you may be wondering why I actually prefer this game’s controls. Well, it’s because you finally have a second option instead of the all-Wiimote controls with the Classic Controller scheme. Oh my god, is it like night and day. It’s so much easier to make tight turns, change direction and even get the cursor to home in on a specific fish or creature when there are dozens on your screen. Quick turn is finally its own button rather than being a double click of the B button of the Wiimote, which is also your swimming button, so you no longer have to stop moving for a second to spin around. In fact, the only thing missing from the Classic Controller option is the ability to roll. How they made this oversight is beyond me, but at least the Wiimote is still connected to the Classic Controller when you play. Overall though, the Classic Controller gives you a superior gameplay experience and makes it easier to scan, feed, heal and swim throughout the game.

The overall gameplay flows like this: You pick a location for diving, you jump into the briny blue and then you swim around to complete your objective. Perhaps it’s to find a specific object or fish, or maybe it’s to complete a map of the dive spot so you can make some money. You can stay underwater as long as you have air, and while underwater, you can scan fish to add them (and their zoological information) to your collection. You can also find coins, relics, and more in the water.

You have many options besides the basic gameplay. You can feed fish, use a pulsar gun to heal them, use an electromagnetic sensor to find treasure buried beneath the sands, take pictures with an underwater camera, and use a sea whistle to call one of your animal partners to you so you can swim together. It’s all very simple, and although the basic controls of the game are quite simple and will be used in each section, the goals and locations will differ wildly.

So Endless Ocean: Blue World might lack the music and more fun aspects of the original Endless Ocean, but the Classic Controller makes the game a lot easier, and thus more fun, to play. It still has some issues and the Wiimote controls are a bit clunkier than ever, but the overall experience has taken a step in the right direction.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Enjoyable

5. Replayability

Blue World is a very large open ended game. You’ll have to go through each area of the game multiple times to see every fish, collect every object and finish every subquest. As I said earlier, this game is longer than most RPG’s and with the ability to gain diving and salvage levels, it can sometimes feel like one rather than a simulation. You can spend hours just training a dolphin and it will feel like mere minutes. I spent an entire day just exploring the first two areas in the game because I wanted to see the differences between day and night and make sure I collected all that I could. It’s very hard to see all that there is to see in Blue World, and much like the original game, I know I’ll be playing this title for some time to come, even long after this review has gone live.

You also have the bonus ability of playing with your friends over the Wi-Fi connection. It doesn’t really add anything to the game but it is a nice little thing to do now and then. It’s a bone thrown to you from Arika, although it’s not something most people who pick up this title will get much use out of.

It’s still amazing that you can get more replay value out of a budget title than nearly every full priced game on the Wii as well as most 360 and PS3 games. There’s always one more coin to collect or one more fish to feed.

Replayability Rating: Unparalleled

6. Balance

This is another area where Blue World exceeds the original. Instead of having to pet some fish for literally minutes to identify them, now you just lock onto them with the A button and you get your information. If you want more details about the creature, you can feed them and/or take their picture to get some trivia. This is nicely done and lets one get the knowledge about the animal in an easier fashion.

The game has also added a punishment if you run out of air on your dive. In the original, you just went back to the surface and that was that. Now you have to surface before your oxygen is depleted or you get a mark against you in your records. It’s a wrist slap to be sure, but at least there is some acknowledgment that you would have died horribly if you did something like that in real life. You can also be attacked by predatory animals. I accidentally walked into a great white shark feeding frenzy, and though I had my pulsar to repel them, I couldn’t take out a half dozen sharks and, well, they got me. You don’t die when this happens or get any real punishment save for your pride being damaged. It’s like in Afrika where you can be attacked by a hippo or zebra, but you’ll be pulled out of harm’s way at the last second. Still, it’s a bit scary to see a pack of sharks bearing down on you, even in a video game.

It’ll be tricky to complete everything in the game and some quests are definitely harder than others, but as long as you explore everything, you’ll be able to finish them, even if it is later rather than sooner.

Balance Rating: Good

7. Originality

Between the Everblue games (the series Arika made before they moved on to Endless Ocean) and the Aquanaut’s Holiday series, I’m surprised how crowded the “underwater simulator” genre has gotten over the last few years. I can’t really say that Blue World brings anything new to the table, as there is nothing here, save for some collection aspects and a new control scheme, that truly separates it from the original. It’s basically the same game with a fresh coat of paint. At least the original was a vastly improved version of Everblue.

So if there is one real pratfall for Blue World, it is that you are getting essentially the same game but with different locations, a new soundtrack and some very small new options to play with in exchange for the gutting of others.

Originality Rating: Below Average

8. Addictiveness

Like the original Endless Ocean, Blue World was very hard to put down. It has an almost meditative quality about it that I adore. The music, the water, the fish and the entire package never fails to sooth me. I spent days with this game where I would play it for hours at a time. In fact most of my “breaks” were because the batteries in my wireless sensor bar or wiimote died and I had to recharge them. Blue World is so serene, it’s rather hard to put down. It mellows me out, puts a smile on my face, and I get to think about my Cancun vacation coming up at the end of April where I’ll get to do this sort of thing for real rather than virtually.

Blue World is a slow paced game where the goal is simply to look and experience rather than kill anything or save a princess. Gamers with short attention spans or ADHD might not be able to deal with the laid back atmosphere of the game, but for most gamers, once you get into Blue World, it’ll be hard to stop playing.

Addictiveness Rating: Good

9. Appeal Factor

Although some would-be gaming publications poo-poo’d the original Endless Ocean and refused to even call it a game (How long did you stay in business after that, EGM?), it sold extremely well, proved to be popular with actual gamers and ended up winning several awards when 2008 was done, including the two from us mentioned in the preamble of this review. Much like the original, Blue World is a game that can be appreciated by nearly everyone, be they casual gamer, small child, or diehard consumer of electronic entertainment. The game is a work of beauty, speaking to the artist within each of us, and if this game somehow fails to touch your soul, then you probably don’t have one. Even if an underwater sea life simulation is outside your usual genre preferences, you’ll find yourself captivated by this game and scouring columns of coral to see if there is a small life form of secret coin embedded in there somewhere. It’s a game that transcends genres, and although it admittedly isn’t for everyone, it is a game that even people without patience or calm should experience just to see that high quality games that don’t involve slaughtering a digital opponent do exist.

Appeal Factor: Good

10. Miscellaneous

So for $29.99, you are getting a budget game that is far superior than the majority of fifty or sixty dollar priced titles that are out there. If you’re lucky you’ll also be getting a copy of Wii Speak for free, which generally runs the same cost as this game. This just might be the best release deal of all of 2010. I can’t see any other game getting such a costly pack-in for free.

If you missed out on the original Endless Ocean, then hang your head in deep shame. Worry not though, as the sequel is as cheap as it is awesome, and although my favourite aspects of the original have been replaced and the soundtrack isn’t as awe-inspiring, what’s here is still one of the best games released for the Wii. Blue World is definitely going to be a nominee for several awards at the end of the year. This is a game that needs to be experienced, so by all means, go out and pick it up if you haven’t already.

Miscellaneous Rating: Unparalleled

The Scores
Story/Modes: Great
Graphics: Great
Sound: Great
Control and Gameplay: Enjoyable
Replayability: Unparalleled
Balance: Good
Originality: Below Average
Addictiveness: Good
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Unparalleled
FINAL SCORE: VERY GOOD GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
In a day and age where most gamers tend to be shocked and appalled at seeing a fifty or sixty dollar price tag on a game that is essentially garbage, Endless Ocean: Blue World is a refreshing breath of air. At only $29.99, you are getting a game that is more open ended and longer than the average RPG and boasts visuals that are on par with a high resolution title. Lucky gamers will get a free Wii Speak thrown in with their copy, increasing the value of this game all the more. Although Blue World is a half step down from the original Endless Ocean, due to the replacement of the best (or more soothing) aspects of the game in favour of a gun for calming or healing animals and the loss of the epic soundtrack of the original, this is still one of the best games available for the Wii and one that truly needs to be experienced in order to understand how truly sublime and awe-inspiring it can be. If you have a Wii, you need this game – it’s that simple.
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I’m not really an MMORPG person. This is mainly because people tend to be dicks for the sake of being dicks on them. There have only been two MMOPRG’s I can say I have enjoyed and they are Dungeons and Dragons Online for the PC and Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast. I guess I’m still a bit anti-social with my RPG’s. Ragnarok Online is a Korean MMORPG that has been around for nearly a decade, and one I’d never actually heard of until the offline beat ‘em up game, Ragnarok Battle Offline which I played in French for a short time. I enjoyed the gameplay and the visual styling of that game so I was always tempted to try the MMORPG, but I just never had a chance. Now XSEED has brought us another non-MMORPG spin-off for the series, and this one is thankfully in English.

The locations, graphic style and overall feel of the game such as classes are supposedly very similar to the MMORPG, which is great in terms of continuity and keeping the more diehard fans of the franchise happy. However the most important point is whether or not the game is any good and if the game can bring in any people outside of the current Ragnarok fanbase. So is this a worthy game for your DS regardless of your Ragnarok experience, or is it a game that fails to please anyone in its attempts to bridge the gap between PC MMORPG and portable action RPG?

Let’s Review

1. Story

There are actually two stories in the game that interlock with each other early on. The first is the story of Sierra, a young girl that is being rescued from a dungeon by a scientist and an unnamed adventurer. She manages to escape, but does so by falling off a cliff which leaves her with amnesia. Although this is RPG cliche #1, at least she is able to talk and thus avoids cliche #2. The other story is that of Ales, the character you will control and customize. Ales has both mommy AND daddy issues. An Elektra complex to put it bluntly as he hates his father for leaving his sickly mother and himself behind in his need to save good people and stop bad people and his mother has just passed away so he has severe unresolved grief issues there. Ales decides to set out as an adventurer himself, which is a bit odd considering that’s what his dad does for a living and he obviously hates his dad, but hey, what else can one have for a career in a fantasy game besides shopkeep or royalty?

Alex and Sierra find each other and team up, which is the start of their own hero’s guild. They’ll make new friends along the way and as Ales and Sierra grow as warriors, Sierra’s own past will start to catch up with her.

From both what I’ve read and been told about Ragnarok Online, there is little to no plot or characterization to that game. Well, that’s definitely not the case here. There is a great deal of characterization for all members of your party and you really get to see each individual grown and get fleshed out. Now, there ARE a lot of RPG stereotypes and cliches here, I can’t deny that, but the game balances them out nicely with character depth and some comic touches to events that unfold. The sub-quests had some fun non-sequitur story moments too.

Fans of Ragnarok Online will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of story that goes into this hack and slash title as it’s far more than you’ll find in the MMORPG (or any MMORPG really), and people who are new to Ragnarok through this game will find the characters charming and enjoyable as they romp through this hack and slash.

Story Rating: Enjoyable

2. Graphics

I really liked the visuals in this game. Character designs, background art and monsters are all very detailed and there’s a nice variety to everything you slaughter, even if there is also a good deal of monsters that are just palette swaps from each other. This is easily the best looking RPG released for the DS so far in 2010, but considering your other choices are Glory of Heracles or Sands of Destruction (both of which are turn based rather than action), it’s really not that hard of a title to claim.

Character and monsters models have a lot of texture to them. I was impressed by how much detail could be seen in each member of my party, and how different items would look when equipped. Because you can zoom in or out to three different view sizes, you can really see how detailed these characters are. I also really liked all the little emoticons. Some of them never failed to crack me up, like the smiley face giving a thumb’s up when the blacksmith finished tempering your items.

Possibly my favorite visual comes from the monster cards that sometimes drop when you slay a beast. These cards display adorable, almost chibi, versions of the monsters and it almost makes you feel bad for committing genocide against their terrible monster race.

The graphics of Ragnarok DS are some of the best I’ve seen in an action RPG for the Nintendo DS. In looking at screenshots of the MMORPG in action, the two games do resemble each other, meaning that fans of the MMORPG will get a little something extra out of the graphics while newcomers will just be happy that there is a degree of detail and design to the characters.

Graphics Rating: Good

3. Sound

The music of the game is surprisingly awesome. This is especially true of the battle music, as those tracks are more akin to what you would hear in a Cybergoth or Rave club. You have some techno, some trance and some just plain toe-tapping songs that I could easily see remixed and played in a club like Slimelight. Oonzt Oonzt Oonzt. The rest of the music is equally catchy. I found the main, “I’m in a town” track would get stuck in my head rather frequently, even after I had turned the game off. It’s bubbly, yet pastoral, and very easy to whistle when walking to the post office or in the shower.

There is no voice acting to speak of and there really aren’t a lot of sound effects. The noises of spells tend to blur together and all of them sound very much alike. This is also true for weapons. My bows all sounded alike (even if they looked different) and they would sound like an axe, sword, or any other weapon that the game used. Monsters really didn’t make any noises unless it was from one of their attacks and there just wasn’t much in the game. The game’s music, while excellent, does overpower any other auditory aspect of the game, such as there is.

In short: Wonderful soundtrack, but very sparse in everything else regarding audio features.

Sound Rating: Good

4. Control and Gameplay

There tends to be one common problem with any action RPG where you control a single character and the computer’s A.I. controls your partners: playing as a distance attacker tends to hurt you rather than help you. On paper, playing as a ranged attacker should be great. Your computer controlled allies take all the damage while you snipe away from a distance, reaping XP, gold, and not having to worry about damage. However that rarely happens in an actual game. Take Phantasy Star Portable for example. If you play a Ranger, you are pretty screwed until you grind your character up. Why? Because your AI partners don’t go off on their own –they constantly hover next to you. Because every AI controlled character you get in the game is a close combat fighter, it means they are useless and do nothing. Worst of all, it means the monsters head straight for you, the distance fighter who should be protected, because the developers did an awful job with AI in regards to distance attacks. Now this isn’t always true, as games like Legend of Mana have done a nice job of factoring in AI with a distance based protagonist, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

So the big question is whether or not Ragnarok DS has this problem. The answer is yes and no. Compared to most games of this nature, the AI of your opponents is wonderful and they will fight on their own accord. The AI isn’t the problem, but it’s your own character that is. To attack, you have to tap the monster with your stylus. However the pixel area for tapping is actually smaller than the monsters themselves so more than half the time instead of attack, your character will instead walk right up to it, as tapping the screen will move your character. Quite of a mistake to have the move and action commands be the same, don’t you think. When your character does register to hit, a new problem comes up. Your character will sometimes re-position itself to shoot, even if you are a decent distance away. There is no real rhyme or reason to this, and you will find your character back itself into a corner on occasion or even back up off the screen and accidentally move you to new section whilst in the middle of a battle. This is a pretty big developer screw up and AI should not take over your distance character when you tap to shoot. He should just stand his bloody ground and fire away. Alas you don’t get there. It’s also a minor pet peeve that the enemy will always make a beeline for your character and will thus walk through attacks from your partners to get to you where you are then backed into a corner as mentioned previous or where your character will keep backing up to create distance and walk off the screen. In other words, the worst aspect about playing a distance based attacker has been fixed, but you now have new, equally annoying problems to deal with. Thankfully these are issues only inherent to playing a distance based character, but it’s better you know these now than finding out after you’ve already pumped your Dex stat up high and can’t get those points or hours of your time back. I still liked my Hunter and was able to plow through the game in spite of these issues, but the issues with Ragnarok DS are simply easy to fix ones that GungHo just didn’t bother to and that’s sloppy and sad.

Now the other classes I tried out (as you can switch between jobs regularly) didn’t have this issue as they were all close combat classes. The only real problem was again that sometimes, the game would register your attack tap with the stylus as “Hey, go move right next to the monster but don’t do anything.” While I love how well Ragnarok DS uses the stylus , it really should have give you the option to used the D-pad to move your character OR to tap the touch screen, but not have both active at the same time. Instead having both active at all times can really screw up your attacks.

For the most part, Ragnarok DS plays as you would imagine. You guide your character through towns and dungeons, you buy items, you follow the main story quest or do sidequests and then you level up and get more powerful. What makes the game stand out is its use of the touch pad and the class system. In combat, you’ll gain special attacks or spells based on your character’s profession. To use these, you click on your shortcut bar in the upper right hand corner and tap on the icon for the move you want. Then you use the stylus motion assigned for that attack. Maybe it is a slash through the target, or perhaps it is touching your stylus to the pad allowing the attack to “charge.” There are quite a few different ways to use the stylus and touch pad to activate special moves and this made combat more interesting as the normal combat attacks aren’t even button mashing hack and slash. You just tap the opponent once and you keep attacking until you change the command. You can sit back and let the battle unfold on its own. This to me is pretty dull so the special attacks, along with the story and visuals, are what kept me going. The actual playing of the game itself could be quite dull for an action game.

The job system was pretty interesting. You not only get overall level experience, but you gain job level experience as well. When your base level goes up, you gain points to add to your various statistics like Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Luck and so on. When your job level goes up, you gain a skill point that can be spent on any of your character’s possible skills. Some skills are only accessible when a lower tier skill hits level three or five, and then it will open up. You can switch between low level jobs whenever you would like, but once you hit level 30 in a lower job, you can be promoted to a higher level job, with better skills, stats, and so on. After you reach level 30 in your high job, you can choose to have a limit break, which will reset your character back down to “novice,” which is the lowest tier job you can have in exchange for a bunch of bonus skill points. Only your protagonist can do a limit break however and although your job will be reset, your overall base level will not. This is a great way to earn more points when you’re really high levels and/or you realize a class was wrong for you. I ended up using a limit break to leave my Hunter class and then moved on to Tae Kwon Kid and its higher job class of Tae Kwon Master.

Overall, the game was a bit of a passive experience for an action RPG, and the controls could have used a bit of an overhaul, especially around the Archer (and to a lesser extent the Thief) class, but there were some interesting gameplay elements here and I enjoyed the game for what it was and the level of customization of your character here is pretty impressive. It was better than the usual turn based fare, but action RPG fans may find the controls a bit of a letdown. PC RPG fans will actually have the least complaints or annoyance here as it’s where similar to MMORPG’s I’ve tried before and even some rank and file PC RPG’s like Neverwinter Nights. I just feel it doesn’t translate that well into a portable game. I think the sequel, if there is one, will really live up to the potential shown here.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Decent

5. Replayability

Ragnarok DS is exceptionally linear. Side quests are plentiful but all basically boil down to, “Get me X number of object Y.” You do have the option to play sidequests multiple times, but it’s really not worth it due to how long it takes to get certain items. Most monsters drop three to five different items, but only drop one, if any, when they die, and the drop rate for most items is shockingly low. This means these subquests can take long than a main story quest simply because you’re doing the same thing over and over again just waiting for an item drop. Often you’ll end these subquests pretty overpowered and enemies will be even more of a cakewalk than they were before the subquest.

What gives Ragnarok DS its replay value are all the customization options that this game offers and the online play. You and up to two of your friends can access what is called, “The Mirage Tower,” but you have to unlock the Sograt Dessert first. There are fifty-five levels of the tower and you only get a break between every five levels. It’s pretty much the same each time you go in with the goal being to see how far you can get. I do like that in multiplayer mode, you can edit the appearance of your character so you don’t have three Ales that look exactly alike. That would get way too confusing.

Still, due to the linear nature of the game and how slow the game can drag on, I can’t really say you’ll get too much replay out of the game save for multiplayer. I liked the story and characters enough, but a few branching paths or the like would have helped this game go a lot further. As it stands, it’s a fun title, but I don’t know if many gamers will pick it up again after they’ve beaten it.

Replayability Rating: Mediocre

6. Balance

I already touched on two balance issue re: subquests and drop rates in the last section, but man, wandering around for two hours waiting for an item to drop out of this one creature is more boring than I can properly put into words. This was nowhere as bad as Adventures To Go which I loved until the very last dungeon, but it still made things drag for me. In Adventures To Go, you can’t beat the final boss until you find a very rarely occurring monster on floor above it. This monster has a 1% chance of occurring and then it MIGHT drop the item you need. EIGHT HOURS LATER, that monster had not appeared. So really, the drop rates here might seem ungodly low at times, but it’s a walk in the park compared to that game. It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose.

The game is also markedly easily. At no point in the main game did any of my characters fall below half their hit points. Healing items and spells are overpowered and extremely common with Sierra casting her healing spells without any restraint and yet never running out of SP. It almost makes things TOO easy. That coupled with any real activity needed on your part to play through most battles and you have a game that as I have said before, turns into a bit of a dull grindfest rather than hack and slash fun. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the game, but I can’t deny the difficulty was lacking and that there were some definite issues with the game that seemed to lengthen the experience as the expense of fun. It’s not a bad game and I found it strangely hard to put down because I was enjoying the customization aspects and the plot, but gameplay and balance are the two biggest low points of this title.

Balance Rating: Mediocre

7. Originality

I can’t really say that Ragnarok DS is a truly innovative game, but it does do something things outside the box. I’ve always wondered why there weren’t more PC style RPG’s on the DS. The stylus and touch pad seem like a great fit for point and click games. We’ve already seen Adventure games, long a standby of the PC, meet with success on the DS, so why not point and click RPG’s. Diablo could be done quite well on this system, as could say Baldur’s Gate and other games where the combat consists of “clicking on an enemy and letting the AI go to town.” Ragnarok DS does a fairly good job of transporting these mechanics to the DS and with a little fine tuning, it could have been something truly special instead of “merely” a fun game with a few control and balance issues. The gameplay and character customizations are the highlights here and even in the areas where the game does creep into cliches and old RPG adages and stereotypes, it still does so with both style and substance and keeps the game fun in the long run even when the occasional quest gets dull. Although Ragnarok DS does have its flaws, it does push boundaries that quite honestly, needed to be pushed five years ago when the DS was still young. At least someone is finally doing the obvious.

Originality Rating: Above Average

8. Addictiveness

I have mentioned a few times that I found the subquests a bit dull due to the sheer grind of having to kill legions of monsters with a very low spawn rate not to advance the plot, but in hopes that an item will finally drop. It’s grinding not for the sake of grinding or power gaming but because you have no choice. I’m not down with that at all.

At the same time, I had a very hard time putting the game down when I wasn’t doing the subquests. The story was fun, if not fresh, the graphics and character designs were fun, and I enjoyed the overall feel of the game. There are times where hours would pass by and I wouldn’t even know it. I was too busy advancing the plot and seeing what cards would be best with which character or trying to decide how to spend my character’s points. I felt a vested interest in the game even during the low points, and that’s how you know when a game has you. Yes, I’d take breaks after finally finishing a long subquest that involved collecting items and really had nothing to make the quest stand out save I was killing a different monster in this one in hopes of a different item than I had with the previous dozen or so quests. The subquests are definitely chores at times, but the main game isn’t and thankfully those subquests are optional so YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THEM. Overall, I enjoyed my time with Ragnarok DS and the good outweighed the bad.

Addictiveness Rating: Good

9. Appeal Factor

Fans of Ragnarok Online will definitely enjoy this as it’s pretty similar to the MMORPG, but without the assholes and with an actual plot. Fans of PC RPGs that generally don’t like console games will enjoy seeing the controls for that style of game have made it to the DS with only a few minor flaws. People in need of a portable RPG fix will find Ragnarok DS enjoyable as long as they have the patience for grinding. It’s a lot of fun to play with friends and there are so few RPGs for the DS that let you play with friends outside of a PvP settng. Well here is one that offers an enormous amount of customization and provides owners of the game with more of a challenge than in the actual story mode.

Ragnarok DS won’t be most gamers RPG of the year or even the DS GOTY, but it is a game most people can have fun with. The basic core of the game and the character building process is quite addictive and it’s just as fun playing it by yourself as it is when you and some friends get together to kill some creepy monsters.

Appeal Factor: Good

10. Miscellaneous

There’s no real bonus content to speak of save for the Mirage Tower for some online play, but I have to say that much like how I actually prefer Phantasy Star 0 and Phantasy Star Portable to PSO or Phantasy Star Universe, Ragnarok DS is definitely preferable to the average MMORPG. You don’t have deal with people acting like choads thanks to the safety of internet anonymity. You can play with your friends without having to join a guild and the silly video game nerd politics that come with one. It’s a nice straight forward hack and slash RPG that tries to implement PC style gameplay on the DS with a good degree of success. I’m a little put out that the MSRP is $34.99 instead of $29.99 as it really doesn’t offer anything in exchange for that extra five dollars, but if you do buy the game you’ll definitely be able to put a lot of time into it, especially if you like customizing your own character. Fans of the MMORPG will be pleased to see that several cited shortcomings of that version of Ragnarok have been taken into consideration here and you can still play it with friends. Has Ragnarok DS convinced me to play the MMORPG, even with the seven pre-order items? No. Not really. What it has convinced me of is that PC style RPG’s should be plentiful on the DS due and that it is a shame that they are not. I’d love to see a sequel to this game with distance based attacker issues cleaned up, but overall I’m happy with the overall game and can recommend it to others, albeit with some hesitation.

Miscellaneous Rating: Above Average

The Scores
Story: Enjoyable
Graphics: Good
Sound: Good
Control and Gameplay: Decent
Replayability: Mediocre
Balance: Mediocre
Originality: Above Average
Addictiveness: Good
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Above Average
FINAL SCORE: ABOVE AVERAGE GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Ragnarok DS turned out to be a fun little offering. It definitely takes the PC RPG “point and click” style game play and turns it into “point and tap,” which is not only refreshing but also has me wondering why this hasn’t happened very often, if at all, with other DS RPG’s. The game’s graphics and soundtrack are very nicely done and it’s nice to see an RPG push aside the typical high fantasy tracks for something like the techno, trance and rave beats one will find in this game’s dungeons. Online multiplayer works nicely and without any real lag, and it’s a great way to simulate a mini MMORPG feeling. That’s not to say Ragnarok DS doesn’t have its flaws. The game can get quite dull with the sidequests that revolve entirely on grinding until a monster finally drops an item you need to move on, and there are a few gameplay and balance issues, though several of those can be avoided if you stick to close combat instead of ranged. Overall, Ragnarok DS is worth checking out whether or not you’ve played the MMORPG. It does have its issues but the good does outweigh the bad here.

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Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week, we’re looking at a pretty unusual franchise in that it was a trilogy of games with each of the games ending up on a different system. The original game was only for the Xbox and later, a cleaned up and expanded version came out for the Nintendo GameCube. The second game in the series, Wayward was a Sony Playstation 2 exclusive and the third game, Redeemer was exclusive to the Xbox. In a sense, only a true fan of video gaming itself was be able to enjoy the entire series with its tight continuity and fleshed out characters as they would have needed to own all three systems from that console generation. The first and the third games were popular with critics and all three sold decently enough thanks to the level of quality in the titles and because of the large installed fan base that was came with White Wolf’s World of Darkness. Although the two Vampire: The Masquerade games for the PC are better known to the average gamer, this trilogy remains the most successful WoD video game product. Seven years after the last game in the Hunter: The Reckoning series has been released, is there enough life in the series to help it rise from the grave while Vampire: The Masquerade rests in peace? It’s time to take a look.

A.J. Hess – Sequel

I still have the World of Darkness setting memorized, so this game was always dear to me. Purist fans of the pen and paper RPG might have cried foul at seeing the Hunter archetypes turned into one-man-killing-machines, but the Diablo-style setting combined with a choice of ranged and melee attacks was very good. The game was suitably creepy as well, like the level where a grinning teddy bear turned into a vicious killer. Let’s have some more. Romping through this with three other friends would fit right into the Left 4 Dead mold, but with a top-down perspective.

Matt Yaeger – Sequel

For the same reasons I mentioned in the Double Dragon piece a few weeks back. Right now co-op video games are hot. Hunter: The Reckoning was a co-op game were you faced vampires and other things that went bump in the night. Instead of an overhead perspective, if they made the game more of a 3rd person style Diablo game, I think it would sell very well. Look at how well Borderlands sold after it came from out of nowhere.

Guy Desmarais – Sequel

I have played Hunter: The Reckoning on the Gamecube a total of two times. I may not be an expert on the game, but I do remember that it was a lot of fun, and that as a multiplayer experience, it didn’t get much better back then. I would have played more of the game, but its owner soon went back home and The Reckoning was never to be seen again. I couldn’t find it anywhere in stores in Montreal, which might be a good thing, as I might have failed college if I was allowed any more time with this little gem.

What I am saying here is that I want more. I don’t want a reboot, I don’t want a re-release on the Wii with updated controls. I just want MORE. Same gameplay, just with new characters, new levels, new challenges. I was left still craving for more nearly a decade ago, and I want to finally let myself go to an all-out Hunter: The Reckoning orgy. Make it happen.

Mark B. – Start Over

I liked the Hunter: The Reckoning games for what they were. They were essentially dumbed-down versions of Dark Alliance, or alternatively, upgraded versions of Gauntlet, and they were plenty of fun for what they were. I admit, I’m a fan of the pen and paper game the video games are based on, which may or may not improve my opinion of the games as a result, but I still stand by my assessment that the games were a good time for two people to play around with.

I just don’t think they went far enough.

I’d like to see a Hunter game, be it based on The Reckoning or The Vigil, with some more Dark Alliance mechanics tossed in. Given the choice, I’d prefer it to be based in the universe of The Reckoning, if only because the original games were quite good and I’m more familiar with that universe than the new one. Either way, the game itself could retain the same play mechanics as the prior games, and the game world could retain its Left 4 Dead style, but I’d like to see some more mechanical depth added to the experience. Let the player make a character and customize their Creed, stats, and inventory as they see fit. Let the player decide what skills and weapons they want to equip. Basically, make the game a console version of Diablo set in modern times and see what turns up. Sales-wise it couldn’t do much worse than the prior games, and there seems to be a market for this sort of thing now, so why not?

Dave Olvera – Start Over

By start over I mean the core game and its mechanics should be transferred over to a new game world. The World of Darkness, original version, is dead. The new World of Darkness is crap. Hunter’s core is fine and has potential but the license is not needed. Who says you need WoD background to have a monster killing game. Heck, just take the premise and change the background story. Voila! Instant face lift.

Getting a few of your friends together and playing Hunter was a blast. The RPG elements were flavor; spice added to a plate of wanton destruction. The fast paced killing and overall mood of the Hunter games, I believe, are something that can be removed from the license. You can set it in space, set it in a world full of crime. The possibilities are numerous and quite varied.

I wouldn’t mind not having to buy games for separate systems. The GameCube-PS2-Xbox releases annoyed me something fierce. I really enjoyed the series and believe that the RPG/Top down shooter is still a viable genre. Give it another go!

Alexander Lucard – Stay Dead

Here’s the thing. I love the Hunter: The Reckoning series. I own all three games, one for each system. I really wish they would do a collection of all three games so that people didn’t have to own two or three systems to play them all, but hey, that will probably never happen. Interplay is dead and I haven’t seen Activision Blizzard even so much as mention Vivendi Universal in forever. Hell, you can’t even get Redeemer to play on the 360. These games were amazing. There were alternate ends, a ton of cheats and so many unlockable characters. The stories were great, the characters were ones you cared about and you had over a DECADE of continuity between the three games. Then after Redeemer the series was as done as the first World of Darkness.

I wouldn’t want a direct sequel to the game because the trilogy wrapped up so perfectly that a fourth game would be a disservice to the original three. Plus, you’d have to deal with needing four systems to play four different games on. Oy. I wouldn’t want a spin-off, in regards to Hunter: The Vigil as I absolutely hate the new World of Darkness as it’s basically simplified and retarded. It’s a pale mockery of the original and seeing a H:TV game would be even worse than a sequel to the original trilogy in my opinion.

That leaves only two options: Start Over or Stay Dead. Starting Over would probably be a legal nightmare in regards to who owns what these days and I strongly doubt White Wolf would even let them make a new game with the Hunter: The Reckoning title because it would be an admittance of what everyone already knows: that White Wolf severely screwed up by killing off the original World of Darkness and that the new one only has a fraction of the audience. Hell look what happened to the movie. White Wolf has gone from challenging Dungeons & Dragons as the biggest tabletop RPG out there to people barely remembering they still exist.

So that’s why I choose stay dead. If Hunter: The Reckoning was to come back it would only be because White Wolf needed cash to stay afloat and not for any true love of the original games or tabletop product. There would be no quality control behind the product and the original team wouldn’t be used, so it’s almost a guaranteed failure before it even begins. White Wolf turned from an indie RPG publisher that wanted quality and consistency in their products, but they let greed and insanity go to their heads halfway through second edition and it’s been downhill ever since. I’d like the original WoD products to be able to still exist with a modicum of quality and the only way to do so is by letting them stay dead.

Now Activision, if you’d be so kind as to make a Hunter: The Reckoning collection, I’d be eternally grateful as would many gamers. Make it happen.

End Result –
Sequel: 3
Start Over: 2
Stay Dead: 1
Spin-Off: 0

It’s been some weeks since we’ve had such a diverse vote amongst our staff. The one thing all of our participants in this week’s column did have in common is that we each loved the Hunter: The Reckoning series and enjoyed the games for what they were. Will we ever see the franchise revive or a compilation disc put out by Activision, who currently holds the rights? Not bloody likely, but we can always hope for it.

Next week we’ll be looking at the most critically and financially successful female character in the history of video games. No it’s not Lara Croft or Jill Valentine. We’ll be going from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to Zimbabwe, Chicago to Czech and Slovakia AND BACK. See you then!

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Diehard GameFAN: Ragnarok is a popular MMORPG that was started in Korea in 2001. It has spawned several sequels and spin-offs including the DS sequel you are bringing to the US. What made you decide to bring Ragnarok DS to the US?

Ken Berry: We knew how popular Ragnarok Online was as an MMO in the PC community, but we are always looking for solid games that provide a fun gameplay experience rather than licensed titles. Once we started playing Ragnarok DS, we were impressed with how deep the customization options were with a huge selection of unique job classes to master and we became hooked immediately. Any game that we can’t put down is one that definitely qualifies as a title worth pursuing, and having the Ragnarok name-value was just an added bonus to a great standalone DS game.

DHGF: How does this game differ from the MMORPG version?

KB: The biggest difference would of course be that the DS players are not part of the online persistent world, but fans of Ragnarok Online will instantly recognize the artwork, job classes, and many other elements since it takes place within the same Ragnarok Online universe. People that have grown accustomed to playing Ragnarok with others can even join up with two other friends locally or online to take on a special area called the Mirage Tower together.

DHGF: You can play with up to two of your friends via the wi-fi connection. That makes the DS game more Phantasy Star Portable than Phantasy Star Online. What was the decision behind that?

KB: I’ve never played the Phantasy Star series, but my thinking is that it was a natural choice to include online multiplayer for a game that’s renowned for cooperative play and teamwork. Not too many DS titles use the wi-fi connection feature to go online so it’s obvious to see it was very important to the development team if they went through that much trouble to implement it.

DHGF: Which classes have made it from the MMORPG to the DS version?

KB: Fans of the PC version will see a lot of familiar job classes such as the Swordsman and Knight, Magician and Wizard, Archer and Hunter, Acolyte and Priest, Thief and Assassin, Merchant and Blacksmith, and Taekwon Kid which grows into a Taekwon Master. Ragnarok DS will also have two job classes that are new to the Ragnarok world: Dark Knight and Shaman.

DHGF: One of the complaints about the MMORPG version of Ragnarok is that there is little no plot. However that hasn’t stopped millions of people from having fun with it. What’s the story/plot for the DS version?

KB: The plot centers around Ales, a young boy who lost both of his parents but aspires to become a great adventurer and start his own guild someday. Things take a turn for the uncertain when he comes across Sierra, a mysterious girl that doesn’t remember much of anything from her past, and they start going on quests together. Needless to say, Sierra’s past ends up catching up with her so it’s up to Ales and his growing party to try to set things right.

DHGF: There tends to be a bit of a difference between MMORPG fans, who are generally PC gamers, and console gamers. What about Ragnarok Online DS will draw them to the DS version and likewise, what is the hook for people that have no connection to the MMORPG, or perhaps have never even heard of it? Why would they enjoy the DS spin-off?

KB: PC players will find instant familiarity in the job classes and the rest of the world that’s consistent with the Ragnarok universe, but they would also have a lot of fun utilizing the touch screen as special abilities are unleashed by various methods such as slashing, circling, double-tapping, or even holding down to charge and then swiping in the direction you want to unleash the skill. For people unfamiliar with the PC version but enjoy Ragnarok DS, they may enjoy having a party consisting of more than three people which are all individually controlled by other players, and of course they would be familiar with most of the job classes already thanks to their Ragnarok DS playing experience.

DHGF: What can people expect from Ragnarok, gameplay-wise?

KB: Ragnarok DS is a dungeon-crawler’s dream with tons of loot to find, with over 100 quests to complete, and numerous unique jobs to master. The new jobs created for this version, Dark Knight and Shaman, are very rewarding as they require a lot of work to unlock.

DHGF: People that preordered Ragnarok, recieved a whopping SEVEN bonus items. What do these items do for your game?

KB: These are all meant to enhance the experience of playing Ragnarok Online on PC. Their benefits range from increasing experience points gained by defeating monsters, to increasing recovery rate of HP and SP. Hopefully people will put them to good use in their Ragnarok Online accounts, or be perhaps even enticed to start up a new account and give it a try for the first time.

DHGFL Ragnarok 2: Gate of the World is in the beta testing stages back in Asia. Since XSEED is working with GungHo to release the DS game, is there any chance XSEED will be involved with the MMORPG’s eventual release? As well, if this does well, will you be considering any of the other spin-offs like Ragnarok Offline Brawler?

KB: We have no plans to be involved in Rangarok Online 2 as GungHo’s subsidiary, Gravity Interactive, is based in the US and is already running the entire Ragnarok Online community. If they did decide to create any additional games for the Nintendo DS or other consoles, we would have to evaluate that on a case-by-case basis.

DHGF: Finally, will there ever be a chance to play with a member of the XSEED staff in those multi-player missions?

KB: Possibly, but since we’ve had a huge start on the rest of the population playing the game, maybe we’ll wait a week or two to give everyone a chance to level-up and catch up to us first. But knowing gamers, I have a feeling not only will they catch up to us within a week’s time, they will probably completely surpass us and leave us in the dust.

As you can see, XSEED is confident that Ragnarok DS is a game that will be enjoyed by gamers, whether or not they’ve experienced the PC MMORPG. It’s currently out now with a MSRP of $34.99 and I’ll have my review of the game up here at Diehard GameFAN early next week for my usual lengthy commentary. Until then, you can check out the official website for the game to learn more.

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Bioshock 2, Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno, Street Fighter IV, and Gears of War – NECA

Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Kingdom Hearts & Final Fantasy XIII – Square-Enix

Little Big Planet – Mezco

I think it’s interesting Square-Enix is making toys based on Sega and Konami franchises. I wouldn’t have expected that.

InsidePulse Figures covers action figures include the new WWE line from Mattel, comic book figures from lines like DC Direct, Hasbro’s Transformers and more. Check them out regularly for the latest news and rumours on the action figure industry.

Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week, we’re not looking at a franchise so much as a pretty infamous fighter whose violence and finishers stirred up a lot of controversy and anger. No, it’s not Mortal Kombat as that actual is an entire series that is still going on strong (although with Midway’s demise, that series is now left up in the air). No, we’re talking about Primal Rage, an Atari GT fighter released in 1994 which did amazingly well financially, but was trashed critically. The sequel never actually made it into production and so for sixteen years your only chance to play as urinating monkeys or human eating T-Rexes has come through horrible console ports or, if you are “lucky” enough, through the original unedited arcade cabinet. Ten of our staff here at Diehard GameFAN decided to comment this week on what should be done with this well known, but by no means good series. Let’s see what fate awaits Primal Rage

ML Kennedy – Stay Dead

Let’s just act like Primal Rage never happened. We can do that, right? It is such a shame that a game where monkeys fight dinosaurs had to sink to the lowest common denominator. (I can’t believe that I wrote that with no intended irony.)

I’m sure there will always be an audience for farting in fighting games and golden shower finishers, I just don’t want to be a part of that thing.

AJ Hess –Stay Dead

…or Stay Extinct in this case. Look, I love creative fighting games as much as the next guy, but this series is done. Let it stay in the ground for digital archaeologists to find in a few hundred years. The game relied far too much on cheap moves and cheap gags. I have no time in my life for farting apes.

Jon Widro – Stay Dead

Out of all the games covered by this feature, it’s hard to even call Primal Rage a franchise, given it is comprised of only a single game. This game is a perfect example of a “me too” production common to this day, where a popular game is cloned many times in search of a quick buck. Take the gory Mortal Kombat formula of 2-D fighting – but with DINOSAURS. The game was bad, the home ports at the time were bad, and the arcade version on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 is still not fun. It’s easy to think that a fighting game with dinosaurs would be fun, but the execution was horrendous and might have ruined any attempt at the concept in the future.

Aaron Sirois – Stay Dead

For the love of God, stay dead! Look, I like the idea of using giant prehistoric monsters in a fighting game just like the next guy, but they never work out. Primal Rage was no exception. Sure I had a little fun with it when I was young and incredibly stupid, but it really, really sucked. It’s a (pardon the pun) dinosaur from the age when a little blood was all you needed for a fighting game to be successful. It just doesn’t have the chops (I really don’t intend to write these puns, I swear.) to compete in today’s world. It would probably turn into another arena fighter and handily win Worst Game of the Year from everyone. The only good thing about the game was the random episode of Dexter’s Laboratory when they played a knock off of it.

Chris Bowen – Stay Dead

Even when it was new, Primal Rage was a me-too fighter, just trying to cash in on the popularity of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. What, pray-tell, makes Primal Rage better or even as good as any other fighter to come from the 90s? Does anything really separate it from War Gods? Primal Rage was a bad video game, and I don’t see it becoming any better.

It isn’t helped by the fact that the Primal Rage IP is owned by Atari, who can’t get out of their own way anymore. They’re a bad company with a bad name that’s only a part of bad games.

Seriously… how does rebooting this franchise make sense again? It never should have been made in the first place. Leave it alone.

Mark B. – Stay Dead

We’re never going to get to Tobal, are we? It’s just going to be a race to the bottom with fighting games from here on out, isn’t it? I’m going to wake up one morning wanting to write about how I could rock a motherfucker with Chuji-Woo and Alex is going to ask me “Hey, what did you think of Clayfighter?” and I’m just going to weep into my coffee.

I don’t like Primal Rage, is what I’m saying here.

It’s a Mortal Kombat knock-off featuring claymation dinosaurs instead of motion-captured people. It’s developed by Atari, who has brought us such wonderful fighting games as Fight For Life and Kasumi Ninja. It features a farting and vomiting ape FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. The only, and I stress ONLY, reason ANYONE remembers it is because it was a fighting game with dinosaurs in it, which is a lot like saying the only reason anyone remembers Time Killers is because you could lop people’s arms off: notoriety does not make the game good.

I acknowledge that the franchise had some original stylistic elements, as DJ notes below. I counter this, however, by noting that I own a fighting game called Battle Construction Vehicles. This is a fighting game where bulldozers and cranes fight to the death. It is the most original game you have EVER seen, I swear it to you, and it is absolutely god awful. Is it great that the game has some original concepts? Certainly. Does this justify the horrid mechanics beneath the game? By no means. The game itself is little more than a “me too” fighting game with a couple neat mechanics tacked to a weak fighting engine, and time has not been kind to the game or its reputation.

Basically, as a kid I loved dinosaurs so much that I wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up, and I still think this game should stay extinct. Hur hur.

Matt Yeager – Start Over

I guess I’m the only person on the site that liked this game, but I also liked Time Killers back in the day as well. What can I say? When I was let loose in an arcade with a pocketful of quarters, apparently I was drawn towards crappy fighting games. I had it on the Gameboy and it gave me blisters on my thumbs.

I think there would be enough interest in dinosaurs and giant apes enough that maybe a well produced Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network game could be made out of the series. I don’t think it would ever sell well as a full retail offering however.

DJ Tatsujin – Start Over

I usually get a bit of flack over this, but, I actually enjoyed Primal Rage when it released in 1994. As a fine connoisseur of arcade fighters, I found the title to be unique when fields of games such as Fighter’s History were content on just trying to imitate Street Fighter II. On the other hand, though, I will easily admit Primal Rage wasn’t exactly the best fighter ever developed, especially in its compressed home versions.

Given the fact most people’s impressions of the game merely stem from a monkey that urinates, flatulates and regurgitates, it’s hard to believe the common public has dove as deep as I did into Primal Rage. If I could agree on one argument, however, it is that the title has not aged very well, visually or mechanically. The stop-motion animation is fuzzy in the home versions due to compression, holding down buttons and inputting combinations to execute moves isn’t as fluid as it should be, the character roster is shallow, the single-player mode is unrewarding with no boss character to fight and balance isn’t exactly one of the game’s strongest suits. Given the title’s presentation (most notably the powerful arcade installment), though, someone could really make quite the current-day fighter with the premise.

I was 12 years old when Primal Rage first released and as a pre-teen boy, how freakin’ cool is it to see two dinosaurs battle each other to the death? The dinosaurs pulled in the younger crowd and the violence reeled in everyone looking for their next “Mortal Kombat fix.” If that isn’t appeal, I don’t know what is. Primal Rage was a fantastic idea that just wasn’t as great as a finished product, so I would believe the game has a leg to stand on in this day and age. The originality is the hook here: Onstage worshippers could be eaten to restore health if the player could combo, a volcano killed the fighters if time ran out, the HUD featured a heart that beat faster as the dino was injured and burst when the player ran out of health and a few of the finishing attacks were interesting and risqué for their time (yes, some of them are really stupid, too). If re-imagined, a lot of the game’s concepts could potentially go really far.

Given this raw appeal and a recent jolt to the fighting game arena, my proposal is to start the series over. Go back to the drawing board and fix the broken fighting mechanics while bringing the presentation up to today’s standards – i.e. not using clay models that smack each other with minimal frames of animation. Given the newer technology, the game could be ripe with different species and I doubt people would care if different time periods were introduced such as having Pleistocene era woolly mammoths or Elasmotherium going toe-to-toe with the dinos. A developer could certainly do a lot with the visceral nature of the game and the rich history of extinct animals; however, it has to play well. Even though I enjoyed the game the first time around, it just wasn’t fun to most people and fun is something we certainly expect from prehistoric beasts of epic proportions clawing and gnawing each others’ scales off.

Guy Desmarais – Start Over

I remember reading about Primal Rage in Nintendo Power back a long time ago. Just by looking at the screenshots, I knew I had to try the game. After all, it was about giant monkeys fighting dinosaurs, which is pretty much a winning concept if done right. Hell, Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs for the Nintendo DS proved that such a concept still has its place to this day.

The problem is that I eventually got to try it at a friend’s place, thankfully before I put any of my own money down on it. What I discovered was a bland game with lazy characters design and frustrating controls. The characters really are the worst part though. Seriously, dinosaurs and prehistoric stuff was pretty popular back then, so there was a lot of material that kids were already familiar with to get inspiration from. Instead, we got pallette swap characters with different names: two monkeys, two T-Rex. Even Mortal Kombat wasn’t as lazy with its identical ninjas. At least, these characters had different personalities and special moves.

There was also the number of characters. Seven characters? That’s way too short for any respectable fighting game out there. Even the first version of Street Fighter 2 had eight, and it was borderline in order to keep a kid’s short attention span. The only time I had been more disappointed with a roster in a fighting game was with the SNES version of Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game. Seriously, where were Yoko and Bam Bam? Screw you, Nintendo.

The fighting part wasn’t that much better. Even as a kid, I had a knack for remembering button combinations. I could master a couple of characters on Street Fighter 2 and Killer Instinct, but Primal Rage bouts quickly degenerated into button mashing matches, even with the Nintendo Power articles right there to show us the special moves.

If we reboot the franchise, repair all the things that were broken AND add new characters, then yes, I could see the franchise finally functioning. I still have as much interest as back then in seeing dinosaurs and monkey fight. I just want a little bit of variety, and special moves that I can actually execute without having to press everything at the same time in the hope of somehow pulling out something.

This franchise has potential, but it completely wasted it once. The original was the definition of “style over substance”. With a little bit of work and imagination, a new version of Primal Rage could avoid the fate of its predecessor.

Alexander Lucard – Start Over

Look, I found Primal Rage amusing for about an hour when I first played it in the arcades. I found the finishing moves amusing in much the same way I enjoyed the Friendships and Babalities of Mortal Kombat II. However the game was poorly made and I would eventually return to my fighters of choice like Darkstalkers or The King of Fighters.

However, as poor as the arcade version could be, the home versions were even worse. There has never been a quality port of the game (I use the word “quality” loosely) due to the weird coding job done with the original game. The weird game coding is such that there can not be a proper port of this game, and then even authentic and legal versions of the game, ranging from home console versions to the supposedly “arcade perfect” port in Midway Arcades Treasures 2 is messed up to where it is missing some combos, finishers and the like. This means the only way to truly experience the game is with an old arcade cabinet and the developers of the original game refuse to tell ANYONE how to unlock the ROM BIOS for authentic emulation or porting. This is one of the most horrible things about any video game ever as it’s basically a middle finger even to the fans who loved this game. No wonder the sequel was scrapped and eventually only released in the form of an awful novel.

With that said, the original games and all of its shitty home release versions sold extremely well. People like this franchise. When MAT2 came out, people were excited about the re-release of Primal Rage. I should know; I had to review the damn thing. That was only a few years ago too, which means there is obviously still an audience for this series. So if it would sell and actually redeem the idea of monsters fighting horribly to the death, than I say go for it. You would just need a whole new team of developers and several more characters to go with the weird dinosaur god creatures you played as in order to fill out the roster. There are people that like urine, feces and fart jokes in their game. Why else are there people that still want another Conker title? I may not be one of them, but I can still see the potential for a good game to come out of a series about magical dinosaurs killing each other, as well as the profit potential for a company like Atari that could sure use a hit on their hands.

End Result –
Stay Dead: 6
Start Over: 4
Sequel: 0
Spin-Off: 0

Wow, this was actually pretty close. I was expecting this to be a Bubsy level hate fest, yet some of us were still able to find some positives left in Primal Rage. Of course the majority of the staff here at Diehard GameFAN would still rather see these quasi-dinos left buried in the sands of time. Who knows, perhaps when Atari gets desperate, we’ll see the game reemerge. Of course my only question left is, “Why was Primal Rage on a Midway compilation when Atari has always owned it?”

Next week, we’ll be looking at the only series White Wolf ever had for consoles and if it has enough staying power to return from the dead, even after the tabletop series has long since died. See you then!

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This is interesting. 5-in-1 Solitaire was released for DSiWare the same day as the WiiWare version. The DSi version was only 200 Nintendo points ($2), while the Wii version if 500 ($5). You would think the portable one would be more expensive, since you can take it anywhere, while this version is tethered to your TV, which is probably in reach of your computer which generally has at least one version of Solitaire on it for free (Mine has three of the five modes in this game.) So it’s more than a little odd that someone would want to pay for more versions of Solitaire. However, I suppose maybe you don’t want your child getting their grubby mitts all over your computer, especially since it is tax time. With that in mind, let’s see if Digital Leisure has given us a reason to actually pay money for Solitaire.

Let’s Review

1. Modes

As the name implies, 5-in-1 Solitaire gives you five versions of the card game Solitaire. You have Klondike, which is your standard Vegas Solitaire game and the one you generally find just called “Solitaire.” You have seven stacks and you’re trying to get all the cards in reverse order into four banks, one of each suit. You can turn over either one or three cards at a time depending on the rules you are using.

Freecell is another game that come standard on your computer, and again, your goal is to move all of the cards in reverse order into one of four piles. Here, however, you can only move one card at a time from one of the eight stacks to another, unless they are in order, in which case you can move up to four. There is also a bank where you can store up to four cards to keep them out of your way until they are actually helpful.

Spider is the third game that usually comes on your computer for free. Here you have only one suit of cards, but ten different sets. You’ll be attempting to stack cards in order and when you do, they can be removed from the playing field. The goal is to remove them all, or at least as many as you can.

Golf is one of two versions of Solitaire in this game that I’ve never encountered before. Here you start with seven piles of cards five cards deep. You have the remaining twenty cards in the deck and you turn them over one by one. You can then remove cards from the pile if they are one number (or face) higher or lower than the card you just turned over. So if it is a five, you can remove a six or a four if you have it. If you removed a six, then you can play a seven or five, and so on. Once you can’t make a move, you flip over a new card. You keep going until your twenty cards are done.

Finally there is Gaps which someone had to have been on massive amounts of crack to make up and/or understand. You have four rows of cards, each of which has thirteen cards. There are four gaps based on where the aces would be in the rows and your job is to align all the suits from 2 to K in order. It’s a very convoluted game and I can’t imagine why anyone would play this.

So you have five cards games, three of which can be found for free on any computer. One of the two new card games is really fun (Golf) while the other (Gaps) is horrible. At least you’re getting a card game for a dollar each, but it’s disappointing the DS got all five games for less than half the price.

Modes Rating: Mediocre

2. Graphics

Well, there’s not much to talk about here. Like with all virtual card games, you have a green backdrop signifying a gambling table, a deck of cards and designs for the cards. I will say that the game gives you a choice of four different deck designs for the back of your cards, but none of them are all that interesting. As well, the card graphics are rather blocky and unattractive. It’s almost as if the developers took the DSi graphics and then resized the graphics to fit a TV screen, complete with blurring and runny edges. It’s very similar to taking a low resolution image and then trying to make it work in a print article.

This isn’t a very visually appealing game, and things could have looked a lot nicer than what we have here. When my free Solitaire games on my laptop are prettier, you know there’s a problem.

Graphics Rating: Poor

3. Sound

There’s not a lot here for sound either. You have a generic background track that is neither annoying nor memorable. It just kind of sits there and it fades into the background while you play the game. I forgot it was even playing most of the time.

Then there are the sound effects. These can be really annoying, whether they are positive or negative noises. It’s just really bad squawking or MIDI blips. The game is actually better when you mute it. I’m not sure why they added sound effects to a card game, but there you go.

Sound Rating: Poor

4. Control and Gameplay

Your controls are pretty cut and dry. You move to a card you want to pick up and move and hold down the A button. Then you move your Wiimote to your desired location and let go. Repeat until game is won or lost. The end. You would think this would be pretty simple to do, but surprisingly the gameplay isn’t flawless. There will be quite a few times when you click on a card and it doesn’t move, or when you move it to the new spot, it doesn’t take and it moves back to its original place. This can be pretty annoying and it appears Digital Leisure knew that this was an issue with the game as there is an autoplay feature. This will move cards for you to keep you from missing points or matches. Of course, this makes me wonder what’s the point of playing this as it takes a lot of the actual PLAYING THE GAME out of the title, but it’ll probably be a lot of help to younger gamers or people that somehow have never played Solitaire before.

All and all, it’s simple and easy to play. Just like any other Solitaire title.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Good

5. Replayability

Although Solitaire games are simple, you can get a lot of replay out of them. Just ask all those people that play it on their computer at work instead of doing their jobs! With five different versions of Solitaire in this game, you have five times the lack of productivity. Of course, you actually have to turn your Wii on and then load the WiiWare title in order to play it, so it won’t distract you from that report or spreadsheet you need to finish.

Each game plays quite differently, each time you play it’s a different experience, and there’s a reason tens of millions of people playing this game on a regular basis.

Replayability Rating: Classic

6. Balance

Solitaire, no matter the version, is a game of chance. You can’t really control how the cards fall and sometimes, no matter how clever you are, this is what leads to your defeat rather than a mis-move on your part. It’s like Mahjong in that often you are trying to see how close you can get to winning rather than winning itself.

There’s not a lot you can do to truly improve at these types of games save for card counting, and with versions like Spider Solitaire, even that can’t help you. No, these are games of chance that rely on your wits and eyes more than any true degree of skill, and that’s half the fun. The game does give you a few scoring and playing options, such as one or three card draw for Klondike or a timed version of each game. Hey, at least it’s something, right?

Balance Rating: Good

7. Originality

There’s already a ton of card game titles for the Wii, and for game consoles in general. Everyone with a computer or a video game system has a Solitaire game already, if not other versions like FreeCell or Spider. More people have probably played electronic Solitaire than Super Mario Bros., and there’s nothing this game does that stands out form the many versions already out there. It’s simply a carbon copy you are paying for rather than getting for free.

Originality Rating: Worthless

8. Addictiveness

I made a joke earlier about how electronic Solitaire eats away at work productivity, but there are as many studies that show that this kills workplace productivity as there are ones that show it actually helps. Regardless which study you choose to believe in, it has long been proven that this is one of the most, if not THE most, addictive video game ever. Part of it may be that every computer has it and so it’s easy to get a hold of it, but the fact remains it’s hard to play just a single game of Solitaire, no matter the version. The same holds true here. I sunk more time than I expected to into Golf, playing thirty some round of it before taking a break. I’d never experienced this version of Solitaire and I actually had a lot of fun with it.

It just goes to show simple games are often the best.

Addictiveness Rating: Unparalleled

9. Appeal Factor

Solitaire is the most popular video game in the world and the most used computer application to boot. Everyone enjoys Solitaire, albeit to varying degrees. The question is not whether or not people will enjoy 5-in-1 Solitaire, but if they will pay for it, especially when every computer user has one to three of the variants already on their computer. Personally, I could see paying for the DSiWare version, as maybe you have a desktop computer and not a laptop and you’d like to play when traveling. The Wii version? Not so much. It just doesn’t make sense to me to have this on my Wii when I can get the DSi version for only two dollars or play Solitaire on my computer for free. I can’t see a lot of people paying for this one, even if it is only five bucks.

Appeal Factor: Mediocre

10. Miscellaneous

I’m not sure why Digital Leisure thought they could make money off Solitaire. I mean, in order to download 5-in-1 you need an internet connection. If you have an internet connection, you have a computer. If you have a computer, you have Solitaire. It’s pretty simple. Then the Wii version is $5 compared to the DSi’s $2 version? It just hurts my brain to see so many poor business decisions in one package. As fun as Solitaire can be, it’s almost always free. Why pay for something you can get for free? For the same price, you can get Digital Leisure’s Fast Draw Showdown which is a fun and highly original title you a) can’t get for free and b) can’t get on a computer. Support Digital Leisure in that way rather than paying for something you can already get for nothing.

Miscellaneous Rating: Worthless

The Scores
Modes: Mediocre
Graphics: Poor
Sound: Poor
Control and Gameplay: Good
Replayability: Classic
Balance: Good
Originality: Worthless
Addictiveness: Unparalleled
Appeal Factor: Mediocre
Miscellaneous: Worthless
FINAL SCORE: DECENT GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
5-in-1 Solitaire is a fun game to be sure, but it suffers from two big problems. The first is that you can generally get this game for free on any standard computer. The second is that you can get the exact same game for your DSi for only $2 instead of paying $5 for the WiiWare version. Both of these issues should keep anyone with the slightest degree of rational thinking from buying this. However, if you absolutely love Solitaire there are two versions of the game you usually can’t find on a computer, which are Golf and Gaps. Golf is a lot of fun, while Gaps is just stupid. If you want to pay a dollar per Solitaire mode, it’s not an awful deal – just an illogical ones for the reasons stated earlier.
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Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week is a bit of a weird one as usually we have a few to a dozen staffers commenting on the game. This time though, it’s only me. Only two other staffers had even touched the first game in the series, albeit it for less than an hour, NO ONE besides myself has touched the second game and our head of public relations owns both games but hasn’t even put them in his Gamecube. In a way, this really doesn’t surprise me as I’m definitely the From Software fan on the site. I’ve been playing their titles since their very first release in King’s Field, and I assumed that because we have several unabashed Nintendo zealots working for me, that said staffers would have played the very first RPG series for the Nintendo GameCube, especially as this series was exclusive to the system. Alas, it was not to be and this week you’ve got only your intrepid Editor-in-Chief to discuss the history of as well as what should be done with Lost Kingdoms

Alex Lucard – Sequel

Here’s the thing. I really enjoy From Software’s titles. They’re by no means user friendly, often quite weird and generally pretty hard. They also tend to bounce all over the place genre-wise. I can remember being in college, stalking the Agetec message boards for info on Shadow Tower or Echo Night. Although their games have never been all that critically or financially successful a funny thing happened in 2009 – they made a little game called Demon’s Souls and critics across the World Wide Web shat themselves with praise for this game. People were calling it crazy hard, truly unique and innovative even though to longtime From Software fans, this was actually one of their lesser titles. It was basically a bit of several other From Software titles mashed together with less quality than they usually provide and an amazing amount of bugs in the Asian versions (that were thankfully cleaned up for North American release).

That’s not to say that Demon’s Souls is a bad game by any means. It’s definitely better than say Shadow Tower or Enchanted Arms, but compared to the level of innovation, characterization and storytelling one can find in their other titles like Otogi, Echo Night Beyond, and several of the Armoured Core or King’s Field titles, Demon’s Souls comes off a bit lackluster. So it’s amusing and sad to me as a person that has played all of their games (including have to import several) that the titles that truly deserved praise were largely ignored by American gamers and the gaming media, while Demon’s Souls gets praise for basically doing what their other games had done, but not as well. This is what happens when you let work in gaming journalism without a taste for gaming history I suppose. Hopefully the upshot is that all these Demon’s Souls fans will now go back and look at the truly awesome titles From Software has put out over the years to see what they are truly capable of.

Then there is Lost Kingdoms. This two game franchise was exclusive to the Nintendo GameCube and was known as Rune in Japan. Both games in the series received mixed reviews in the US, but the majority were quite positive. The complaints were the usual for a From Software title: not the prettiest game, not the best sounding game or that it was forgettable simply because it wasn’t a first party Nintendo title. However the truth is that the Lost Kingdoms series is not only one of, if not the, most innovative series From Software has ever put out, it was also the most balanced and easily accessible by the average gamer. There were secret levels, a player Vs. player mode (which was not really, if ever, done for an RPG back then) and a ton of customization options. Truly, if there was ever a From Software title for gamers both casual and enthusiast, this was it.

The story is pretty interesting. You play as Katia, who is the princess of the kingdom of Alanjeh. Slowly but surely a black fog begins to envelop all of the five kingdoms that seemed to kill all enter it. When the black fog envelops Alanjeh, Katia manages to escape, along with the kingdom’s Runestone. The Runestone is a powerful magical artifact that allows her to capture Monsters and trap them in cards that she can then use as summon spells against enemies. From there you’ll travel across all five kingdoms making allies and encountering enemies. The basic plot was fairly standard but there were some nice twists and turns such as being able to get enemies bosses on your side as well as encountering Helena, the anti-hero and semi-antagonist of Katia.

Gameplay was truly where things got interesting and even reviewers that didn’t like Lost Kingdoms when it came out praised the highly innovative gameplay that was basically a blend of real time strategy, Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering. Although you can own as many cards as you collect, your deck can only be thirty cards deep. There are chances to replenish your deck or replace cards in levels, but thirty is still your max at a time. There are 105 different kinds of cards in the game, each with their own elemental type. Water beats Fire, but is weak against Earth which is in turn weak against Wood, which is weak against Fire and that brings us full circle as that is vulnerable to Water. There is also a fifth element simply called Neutral which is neither strong nor weak against any element. Cards are further divided into three types: Weapon, Summon and Independent. A weapon card allows Katia to deal direct damage to an opponent, a summon card is a brief summoning of a creature to do damage or some type of status effect and Independent lets you draw a creature fully from a card which will then wander around the battlefield on its own accord, attacking enemies until it dies.

It gets more interesting when you learn that each card gains experience separate from Katia. You can use experience to duplicate the card in question or evolve it into something else. Let’s take a Lizardman for example. At 1,000 XP you can transform it into a Scythe Beast or you can wait until you hit 3,000 XP and turn it into a Venom lizard. If you’re really patient though, you can wait until you have up to 6,000 XP and transform it into a Red Dragon. Nice. There is so much strategy to deck building, battling, and what to do with your card’s XP that you have nearly limitless options with what you can make.

At the end of each level you have a chance to draw between one and three cards from a set of six. The amount you get to draw is based on your ranking in the level and there are always three common cards, two uncommon and one rare. This was a nice way to reward skilled players while also admonishing weaker players and forcing them to get bed. Negative reinforcement is a common From Software trait, as Demon’s Souls fans can certainly attest to.

Multiplayer was a lot of fun too, although I have to admit I’ve only known two other people that owned this game so I haven’t been able to experience it as much as I want to. I love that in PvP, several of the wildly unbalanced cards, which exist only to help you against bosses, are banned from PvP. When the game came out reviewers were critical of this but really, considering you could make a deck of one hit KO cards if you had the time and energy to do so, would that be fun to play with or against? Only if you’re a dick.

I absolutely adored the first game for its large levels, highly original and addictive gameplay and it let me play a CCG without investing hundreds of dollars and shelf space like one would have to with Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon:TCG and the like. It definitely remains in my top ten Gamecube exclusive games of all time. You can pick it up for amazingly little (along with the strategy guide) these days and I definitely implore you to give it a try.

The second game was fairly similar although the plot was significantly different. Here you played as a disliked member of the Thieves’ Guild generations after the first game. The second game introduced more cards as well as a new element in Mechanical and two new types. Helpers is the first new type although it was basically the Independent card but these were the “trap” or “decoy” sub-class of Independents broken out into their own category. They also added transform, which is a combination of Weapon and Summon. When using one of these, Tara (the new protagonist) would transform into a creature allowing her to do direct damage as long as the spell lasted. Summons cards now had two effects and you could choose between them. You could also pay double the card cost for enhanced effects and damage and you could also combine cards into heavy hitting combos.

Although I wasn’t as big a fan of the sequel as I was the first, it was still a lot of fun and it was disappointing to see both Lost Kingdoms games ignored by North American audiences due to being unaware of From Software or not wanting to take chance on a lesser known title.

I would love to see the Lost Kingdoms series make a comeback. The gameplay elements and strategy would be a great fit for any system, but especially the Wii as motion controls seem a natural for card flinging and capturing. Still, it’s been a bit of a drought for quality RPG’s for the current generation of consoles (although not for portable systems) and with From Software experiencing its highest level of popularity, it would be a smart move to capitalize on it by release a third game in the series since it is so user friendly. A gateway to their more diehard releases if you will. Whether Activision or Atlus would get the publishing rights would be a matter for legal departments, but it would be great to see this highly unique style of RPG make a return. I suppose we’ll have to wait until 3-D Dot Game Heroes hits the US to see how much name value From Software currently holds in the US, although considering how many reviewers and/or gamers were praising Atlus as if THEY had made Demon’s Souls, my guess is not very much.

So yes, even though a third Lost Kingdoms title is highly unlikely, it would be great to see. Lost Kingdoms is definitely my second favourite franchise that From Software has put out, after Echo Night, and it would be great to let people see what they’ve missed out on over the past eight years.

End Result:
Sequel: 1
Spin-Off: 0
Stay Dead: 0
Start Over: 0

Well, it was a one-man rambling show this week, but you got a five page discourse on a title to the point where this was basically a mini-review. Hopefully this peek into the obscure will whet your appetite enough to try and get one of the two Lost Kingdoms titles. Next week, we’ll be back with a title I KNOW several of my staff has played. It’s a well known fighting game that is as memorable as it was awful to play. Still the name and brand is highly recognizable. Is that enough in 2010 to drive up enough interest in a sequel? Come back next week to find out.
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Long-time readers know that I’m the go-to guy for exercise or Bemani games on the Wii. Walk it Out is Konami’s attempt to cross the two over. With Rhythm games, Konami has generally done a really good job with DDR Hottest Party 1, HP2, and HP3, which came out a few months ago. There are also god awful rhythm based games like Just Dance.

Then there are the exercise games. Exercise games for the Wii have either been excellent or awful. Your Shape and Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout are the best of the bunch while EA Active and Wii Fit turned out to be little more than snake oil giving the illusion of exercise while actually provided improper techniques and worst of all, exercises that are actually bad for you, especially your hips, joints, knees and ankles. One of the worst that both those high profile but crappy games feature is walking/running in place. It’s bad for your knees. Now treadmills have impact boards built in to counteract this, but just running in place on your floor or in your basement will put undue stress and pressure on your joints. Bottom line is you shouldn’t do it.

Now Walk It Out appears to have taken all that into consideration by providing you a game where you can use a DDR pad or balance board instead of using the default walking in place option. However, it’s also a game where all you do is walk. So how does it hold up?

Let’s Review

1. Modes

So, here’s the game. You customize an avatar with extremely limited options while a “coach” voiced by what sounds like a cross between a six year old girl and Fran Dresher talks to you. After you make your character, you are let loose on a track to practice walking. After you pass the practice track, which involves listening to Katrina & the Waves’, “Walking on Sunshine” three times in a row, you are allowed to leave and then begins the actual game…

…which is just walking around an island with really bad 3-D graphics that look like they are early PSX/Saturn level in quality. That’s it. You just keep walking. While you are walking you can use the Wiimote to pick up little tokens that help unlock more places to walk or actual scenery so you’re not in a desolate wasteland. “Oh look, I got enough tokens to put a bench on the island! Now I have a fire hydrant! I guess I’ll walk some more, I’m so hooked.” You can also collecting things like Rainbow Spheres or pieces of CD’s to unlock more music, which I strongly suggest you do, because you are stuck with only a few tracks at the beginning and all of them are ear-bleedingly awful. I guess that’s one way to motivate you to play longer.

That’s it though. You just walk around the island looking at bad renders of people and places. There are three mini games that are available from the start as well, the only good one of which can only be played with the DDR pad, so if you are a balance board user, you are screwed. The hilarious part is that some games can’t be backed out of unless you hit the home button and go back to the Wii menu, losing all your progress. This game is full of so many design flaws it’s laughable.

So all you do is walk in a badly rendered island listening to (potentially) 120 tracks of music, most of which are pretty awful. There is absolutely nothing fun about this boring, repetitive game and I jog five miles every day. You would think I, who likes to get up and move my legs rather than being a sedentary couch surfer, would be able to find some redeeming value in this title. THERE IS NONE.

Modes Rating: Worthless

2. Graphics

Every time I think the Wii has hit a new low with visuals for this generation, I get something that proves to be even worse. Walk It Out makes things like Valhalla Knights or M&M’s Beach party look like visual masterpieces. This game looks like something made in an early 1990’s “Introduction to Programming” course. Honestly, if the game is just walking repeatedly, you need to have some sort of decent scenery. It’s not like the game will let you run, so you can focus on speed and pacing. Nope, it’s just walking, and you’re forced to do it in front of some of the worst graphics to ever grace your screen.

Your avatar looks like Charlie Brown with a bad post-chemo wig. The colours are dull, things are poorly rendered. Visuals are basic and look like they were from a decade ago. Honestly, if you’re going to do a walking course, who the hell thought unlocking benches or shrubs would make the game interesting or exciting. Where’s a path along a bubbling brook or hiking through the mountains where the reward is a glorious view of a valley below. None of that is in Walk it Out. This thing is ugly. Damn ugly. I get a better view using my treadmill where I stare at a wall for thirty minutes.

Graphics Rating: Worthless

3. Sound

On one hand, this game boasts the largest soundtrack for a Bemani game ever. With over 120 songs, it dwarfs the collection you can find in an actually fun game like Dance Dance Revolution. On the other, the music is all god awful. Let me give you an example of where bad game design and the horrible choice of music can drive one mad as if this game was a Lovecraftian Horror…

There is a horribly designed mini game called slide whose controls barely work and for which you only use the Wiimote. The walking is just put in so you have to walk while playing. The song I was stuck with was The Pussycat Dolls, “When I Grow Up.” Now, you can’t back out of this game, or even pause it once you start. Your only options are to play or do a hard reset of the game. I had to listen to that damn song for ten solid minutes, looping over and over, while I tried to get the controls to even remotely respond. This, my friends, is no doubt what a sample of Hell is like.

It’s also extremely convoluted to change your song lists. First you have to go to the menu screen, which you have to reach with your wiimote while still walking. Then you have to go to the songs area. Then you have to choose from one of many preset playlists that cannot be edited save for turning a song on or off in them. Then you have to go into that list and decide what you want to listen to, many of which only have a single song for the beginning of the game which means you have to listen to the same awful track over and over again. Would it have been that hard to add a song fast forward, shuffle option, or skip button to the Wiimote controls? NO IT WOULD NOT.

So you have a large soundtrack but with tracks only the mentally infirmed can enjoy. Why Konami? Why do you hate your audience so? I’m also peeved you can put this many songs into a crap game like this and not into a DDR title…

Sound effects are pretty lame too. It’s basically 8 or 16-bit MIDI quality and it’s like blurp or squwark noises when you grab an item or unlock something. It’s all pretty annoying. Worst of all are the voice actors for your trainers. I want to know who cast these people so I can berate them (I’d say pummel, but that’s assault). They are some of the most obnoxious voice actors I’ve heard to date. They also say nothing of importance. It’s just awful all around.

I’ll be kind and give this game points for having such a large soundtrack, but when your big reward is unlocking more awful songs, there’s something insidious with your game.

Sound Rating: Mediocre

4. Control and Gameplay

Now here’s the crux. All you do is walk. Remember what I said in the opening about how you should never walk in place and how it is bad for your hips, joints, and knees? Well unfortunately, that’s all this game is. Basically you are paying $29.99 to do eventual damage to your legs. HURRAH!

The Wiimote and Nunchuk control scheme is right out because honestly, it’s bad for you, no matter what surface you are on. The game also expects you to walk in place for a mile+ every day, which is just ludicrous. Again, I run or jog every day and I can feel things not moving/clicking right in my ankles and hips after ten minutes with this game.

The DDR pad scheme is about as bad. After all, you’re still walking in place and at a very awkward pace. It’s doing it on quarter beats (although you can slow things down) but I walk a little bit faster than that so I am basically punished for having a faster gait. Thus the game becomes a very slow version of DDR for me and it’s awful. The one good thing about the pad is that you can walk around on it or use any of the face buttons. This means you do have to stand bowlegged on the left and right arrows, slowing stretching your groin muscles in a way you’re not meant to. You can even walk around on the pad, as long as it’s a direction arrow or button key. This prevents the straight up walking in pace wear and tear, but it’s not much better for you in the scheme of things.

Finally there is the balance board which, if you use it as a step that you go back up and down repeatedly, provides you with the closest approximation to actual exercise you will get from this title. However, there is a reason Wii Fit doesn’t have you use the balance board like this or this often and that’s because it’s simply not designed for that much wear and tear. Using this method means you’ll need a new balance board, which means you’ll have to buy a new Wii Fit, and honestly, if you already have Wii Fit or DDR, why would you lower yourself to owning this in the first place.

The other bit of control is holding down the B button and using the wiimote to look around. Sadly, the axis is inverted on this, and the game never tells you this, so expect to be confused as the motions aren’t natural or fluid. Younger gamers will be especially confused as to why up is now down and vice versa. All you can do while looking around is grab more crappy items anyway and using this often obscures your walker from your view as well as any potential arrows and trails you can go down.

Simply put, this is one of the worst games I have ever played. It functions, but just barely. Even worse, it does so in a way that is REALLY BAD FOR YOUR LOWER BODY. What the hell, Konami?

Control and Gameplay Rating: Worthless

5. Replayability

There’s a lot to unlock in Walk it Out, be it scenery, music, or new places to walk. However, this doesn’t make up for the fact that it is both the worst game I have ever played, as well as the most boring. Honestly, in order to play it you need to already own DDR or Wii Fit and either of those is a better alternative to this. Also, considering the game has you walk in place in such ackward ways, why not just GO OUTSIDE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES AND WALK AROUND. You’ll get a better view, better exercise and you’ll get some sunlight and possibly even make eye contact with another person. These are all things you can’t do with Walk It Out.

There is absolutely no reason to buy this game, much less play it. There are superior exercise options available for the Wii, and you can have more money going up and down stairs in your own home while listening to an iPod. You’ll get a better workout too.

Replayability Rating: Worthless

6. Balance

Balance doesn’t really enter into this game at all. It’s just walking around in place. Worst of all the game forces you to confirm to one of two rhythms, neither of which is a natural walking pace for the majority of people. This means you’re not so much as walking in place as hopping or shifting your mass in time with the beat. Again, this is not good for you and you have to wonder who thought this was a good idea, or even a fun one.

If one wanted to make a quality walking game it would need

A) to let one move at their own proper rhythm instead of forcing one on a person

B) feature extremely nice graphics to even remotely make this an alternative to going outside and actually walking

C) not featuring walking in place which again IS BAD FOR YOU.

In all, this is a badly designed game that does the opposite of what it is meant to be. Shame on you Konami.

Balance Rating: Worthless

7. Originality

There are lots of games that have you use the balance board. This is the first game outside the DDR games I’ve gotten to use my DDR pad with though. As well, although there are other games that contain walking in place horrors, this is the only game that has treated it as a SINGLE game. So yes, you’re getting the game for half of Ea Active or Wii Fit, but you’re only getting a single exercise, and easily the worst one any of these faux exercise games offers (Although crazy jumping is just as bad). If you want a cheap exercise game that actually works, plop down twenty dollars and go buy My Fitness Coach or Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout which is still in my top ten Wii games of all time because it is crazy fun as well as good exercise.

The game is definitely original in its ostentatiousness and Konami certainly has brass balls to sell a game this limited and shallow. It’s definitely a dip into the water to see what people will pay money for, that’s for sure. Walk It Out is certainly innovative in its own ways, but none of them are flattering.

Originality Rating: Poor

8. Addictiveness

Are you kidding? Ten minutes into this game I wanted to stop. Why? Because I knew I was doing something that was bad for my legs. I knew it was ten minutes I could actually have been moving at a normal pace that wasn’t doing harm to me and getting fresh air and/or sunlight. I could walk through my quaint little village of Shirlington onto a path that a river runs by for miles. Even though we had a Winter Storm Advisory and it was coming down in huge white flakes, it still would have been better than sitting through this horrible game.

You’re paying thirty dollars to do something you can do better without anything other than your own flesh and blood! Why would anyone pay for that or willingly get this? More importantly, why would anyone willingly sit through this unless they had to review the game for a gaming website and they were the only staffer with both a balance board and DDR pad? Here’s a hint: THEY WOULDN’T.

Addictiveness Rating: Worthless

9. Appeal Factor

No one should buy this game. No one should play this game. If you willingly paid money for it, please still have your receipt. If you actually found something to like about this game, check yourself into the nearest mental asylum posthaste. There is nothing enjoyable, fun or stimulating about this game. In order to play it, you already have to have Wii Fit or a DDR Hottest party game, and those are far better exercise for you, not to mention more fun than this horrible disc of suck and evil.

NO ONE SHOULD EXPERIENCE THIS. NO ONE.

Appeal Factor: Worthless

10. Miscellaneous

This is the worst “game” I have ever played. Honestly, the only way a game could get worse is if you paid 100 dollars for a game that was nothing but footage of your friends, family, and pets being sexually violated and you used the Wiimote to control the camera angle. This game is bad for your body and you’re paying $30 to walk in place to a horrible video game instead of actually walking and seeing the world or going a few blocks and getting some fresh air. This, my friends, is insanity made digital “entertainment.”

Miscellaneous Rating: Worthless

The Scores
Modes: Worthless
Graphics: Worthless
Sound: Mediocre
Control and Gameplay: Worthless
Replayability: Worthless
Balance: Worthless
Originality: Poor
Addictiveness: Worthless
Appeal Factor: Worthless
Miscellaneous: Worthless
FINAL SCORE: AWFUL GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Walk It Out is the worst game I have ever had to sit through. This is easily the top contender for “2010’s Worst Game of the Year.” There is no redeeming value in it whatsoever. You’re paying thirty dollars to WALK IN PLACE which is horrible for your hips, knees, ankles, and joints to begin with. You are better off just going outside and walking a few blocks. It’s cheaper, prettier, and if you had some sort of music player, it’ll sound better too. If you know anyone that has willingly purchased this game, call your local religious official and have them perform an exorcism on them STAT, as they are no doubt possessed if not an agent of Dread Cthulhu itself. Ia! Ia!
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Hidden object games is one of those genres that tends to appeal to both casual and career gamers. The gameplay tests one’s wits as well as their eyes, and they are usually coupled with a strong or fun story between puzzles to keep your addicted. Everyone seems to like them no matter their preferred genre. Nate liked Where’s Waldo, Mark liked The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes and I had a blast with Cate West: The Vanishing Files. So when I saw the cover to Meane Manor, I thought it would be a blast to play as it looked both creepy and would be a fun diversion for a few hours later.

So is this first entry in what appears to be a new Hidden Object franchise worth your $19.99?

Let’s Review

1. Story

There are eighteen different locations in Meane Manor, and you’ll be seeing them all several times throughout the multiple chapters of the game. Although this might seem dull at first, Becky has in-game story reasons for returning to places and you are given different objects to find each time. After you beat the game, you unlock Free Mode, where you can play any of the 18 locations whenever you want, with randomly occurring objects to find.

The story however is not really what comes to mind when I think of casual gamers or puzzle games. It’s extremely dark and although the graphics LOOK like the game is geared for younger gamers, the plot certainly isn’t. It’s quite freaky and will probably spook small children. So of course I loved it.

Becky is a junior in high school who has a knack for solving puzzles and mysteries. Being young and dumb, she decides to try and solve the mystery of Meane Manor, a house that everyone in town considers haunted. Becky enters the property and finds herself wrapped up in a chilling tale of satanism, madness, murder, and g-g-g-ghosts! It’s actually really well done and the story alone had me playing the game from beginning to end without a single break. I mean it’s not Persona 2: Eternal Punishment or an epic story like you’d see in a high-budget RPG, but for a puzzle game/budget game, this is one of the best stories I’ve ever seen in either of those categories.

Becky will not only be looking for hidden objects, but diary entries written by a deranged lunatic, occult tokens that allow a haunted fortune telling machine to come to life, scrolls containing satanic spells, and even items for a sacrificial altar. Throughout the two to three hours it took me to beat the game I was waiting for Becky to be horribly butchered or wake up to the whole, “I’m listening the ghost of a woman who spat incubi out of her womb. WTF, yo?” The ending was a bit weird and a little more over the top than the rest of the game, but it’s definitely a creepy and extremely fun story to connect a ton of hidden object puzzles together.

Story Rating: Great

2. Graphics

There are two kinds of graphics in the game: the story graphics and the hidden object graphics. The story visuals are cutesy visuals that make the game seem like it’s geared for pre-teen girls, but then the story comes into play and you have this very cute but very creepy game taking place and it’s all a bit surreal. I love the art work and I have to admit, it threw me for a loop when the game kept getting darker and darker. I was like, “Look at the name! It sounds cute. It looks cute. Why is Becky making a half corpse – half vending machine?” Very awesome indeed.

The hidden object parts are done with static images. It’s high quality rendered backgrounds with “randomly” placed objects all around the screen. Most of the objects appear to be photos rather than renders, but if they were actually hand drawn, this is some exceptional work. There are some images that are obviously graphics though, such as the scrolls, or diary entries and that’s because they need to be. I highly doubt the developers could get their hands on the Kitab Al-Azif after all…

Meane Manor is a very nice looking game from beginning to end. I really loved the art style of the story images and this is certainly one of the better looking hidden object games I’ve played.

Graphics Rating: Good

3. Sound

There’s no voice acting per say, but the further into the game you get the more you’ll hear ghostly laughter or murmuring mixed in with the background noise. In fact there is more background noise than music. In the library, you might hear sneezing or a cell phone go off. In the forest you might hear a bird warbling. In the house, it’ll be ominous noises and things going bump in the… day. The only real problem I have with the background noises is that they tend to be overwhelming. There’s so much of it, it can be a bit distracting, although that does add to the challenge of the game. Still, I’m glad you can turn the noises down from their default volume.

When there is music, it does fit the creepy story of the game and it meshes nicely with the game. The sound effects are limited but they fit the game. You get a happy noise when you find an object, a bad noise when you screw up and a variety of kitty noises when you find a cat item.

I would say the sound is the weakest aspect of the game and truth be told, it is a game I’d rather play muted, but it is very atmospheric – I’ll give it that.

Sound Rating: Decent

4. Control and Gameplay

Controls are exceptionally simple. When you go into a puzzle, all you do is use your mouse. At the bottom middle of your screen is the list of objects you have to find. Move your mouse to the object when you find it and click the button. If it’s good, you’ll get a “correct” tone and if the object will fly off your screen. If it’s a special item it will move to the middle of the screen and let you get a good look at it before it goes away. If it’s not the right item, you get an “incorrect” noise.

The only problem with this game is that you don’t get a complete list of items at the start. You can only see eight of them, which is a pretty big foul-up in my opinion. Usually you are able to see the entire list of items you need to find in one of these games. Not here. However one could always look at this as making the game easier since you have less items you have to look for right away.

There are two unique things this game does. The first is that you can find and unlock story items in the game. These range from very creepy diary entries to tokens that activate the fortune telling machine in the house. These flesh out the story nicely and I enjoyed having to find items that related to the plot instead of purely random things like lunch boxes or dragonflies. The other thing the game does that is quite unique is the hint system. In hidden object games you can usually earn “hint” points which outright gives you the location of an item you can’t seem to find. Here you earn hint points by finding cats or cat-based items in each room. There are three cats per stage and each one earns you a hint. As well, the game also gives you a “half hint” without using a hint point. Here you get a silhouette of the item. I loved this because hidden object games often give you very similar items but only one counts. These games might also give you say three toad and just tell you to find a toad. This leads to guess and check. Here you can at least see the outline of an item so you know a “flask” is a whiskey flask and not an Erlenmeyer flask. The prevention of homonym confusion is something these games tend to lack, but not here in Meane Manor.

So the game does one new thing I don’t care for and two things I think are awesome. Overall I’m quite happy with the game and would love to see these sorts of things implemented in other hidden object games.

Control and Gameplay: Very Good

5. Replayability

Although you unlock Free Play mode when you beat this game, it also permanently locks your profile. This really sucks as I’d like to be able to look at all the diary entries or the scrolls again, but now I have to replay the entire game to do so. Sure the game is only two to three hours long, but it’s extremely annoying to have to replay everything. You can’t even do a second save so that you can play one and go back to the original. Everything auto-saves over the same profile so you’re stuck.

This really killed a lot of enthusiasm towards the game for me. At the same time, I loved the story so much, I know I’ll replay it several times over the next few years. I like the mental challenge in hidden object games and the whole “Satanic Nancy Drew” angle is so awesome I can only hope this horrible aspect of the game in the corrected in the next game in this series. At least I HOPE it’s a series. It’s too twisted not to be.

Replayability Rating: Poor

6. Balance

I found Meane Manor to be rather on the easy side compared to other hidden object games. Often times objects were in the same exact spot each time you “entered” a location, including the cats that give you hint points, so I was able to quickly run through locations. As well, objects were so obvious that it seemed the game was more about unlocking the story than the puzzles. For example, ground animals would always be on the ground, darts and nails would always be in a wall, birds would always be in the trees or at the top of the screen and so on. I ended the game with well over 100 hint points saved up which seemed a little extreme to me. As much as I’d like to think I’m just that damn good at these games, I’m going to be a little more humble and say that the game’s difficulty is like it’s graphics and name – geared for younger gamers, while the story is geared for an older audience.

This isn’t to say the game doesn’t have its moments where it is challenging or its hard to find a piece or two in a puzzle, but it is noticeably easier than most games in this genre and anyone should be able to wade through this in a single evening if they sit down and put their mind to it. Of course, the one benefit to the game being this easy is that at least everyone can then enjoy the plot.

Balance Rating: Poor

7. Originality

Hidden object games are pretty much a dime a dozen, but not like this. Most of them don’t have a cracktastic plot that features Nancy Drew vs. Satan. Most lack the extra story content like the scrolls and diaries you find in addition to other items. Most also lack the two layer hint system Meane Manor contains. Sure the core gameplay and puzzle elements are the same as in any hidden object game, but at least Meane Manor tries a few new things to bring in a larger demographic while also placating fans of the genre.

Originality Rating: Above Average

8. Addictiveness

I actually played Meane Manor straight through without stopping save for a bathroom break and to get a glass of water. It’s only two to three hours long, and if you like a weird or spooky story, you’ll be hooked on this game almost instantly. I was playing more for the story elements than for the puzzles, because it became fairly obvious things didn’t randomize that much (or at all with some pieces) and I was more than a little ticked off that my profile was locked after beating the game and I couldn’t return to look at the creepy occult items and diary entries I unlocked. Still, this puzzle game had me glued to my laptop, although it wasn’t necessarily for the gameplay.

I wouldn’t advise playing the game straight through as I did simply because your short term memory will retain item locations. Otherwise, Meane Manor is a solid game that is hard to stop playing once you’ve started it.

Addictiveness Rating: Good

9. Appeal Factor

Meane Manor is a game that will appeal to casual and ardent gamers alike. Hidden object games are quite popular with the casual crowd, while more hardcore gamers will love the story and the strange blend of family style artwork with satanic horror. I showed screenshots of this game to two of my friends that generally eschew anything casual and their reaction was, “Whoa. Dude, I need to play this thing.” It’s such a weird combination of art style, gameplay and disturbing plotlines that if one can get by the “cute” nature of the name and its alliteration, they’ll find a game that is charming as it is creepy. It still won’t be for everyone, but it should definitely fare well with people who prefer their games a little more mature than one normally thinks of when they hear the phrase, “casual game.”

Appeal Factor: Above Average

10. Miscellaneous

Supposedly a second game in the series, The Epiphany of Demons is in the works and will be released later this year. Just the name has me excited as it promises to be a blend of Lovecraftian weirdness and “Oh look, that’s where the abacus is!” Becky Brogan and the Mystery of Meane Manor gave me a good story and was also a nice diversion from the RPG’s, fighting games and workout titles I seem to review these days. It was light in the game play but offered me a better story than most survival horror games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil have provided me as of late. At only $19.99, this is a nice budget title for any gamer, no matter their usual genre preferences, and aside from the locking you out of your profile once you’ve beaten the game, the sheer weirdness of the title will probably have you coming back for more. I know it will me.

Miscellaneous Rating: Good

The Scores
Story: Great
Graphics: Good
Sound: Decent
Control and Gameplay: Very Good
Replayability: Poor
Balance: Poor
Originality: Above Average
Addictiveness: Good
Appeal Factor: Above Average
Miscellaneous: Good
FINAL SCORE: ABOVE AVERAGE GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed Becky Brogan and the Mystery of Meane Manor. Not only does this title bring a few new elements to the whole “hidden object” sub-genre of puzzle gaming, but it also contains one of the creepier and more surreal stories I’ve experienced in quite some time, even outdoing a lot of console “survival horror” titles. Don’t let the cute name fool you – Becky Brogan is basically Nancy Drew if Nancy went around conjuring up the ghosts of religious fanatics and satanic murderers while solving mysteries. At $19.99, it’s a nice little budget casual game, although the fact the game locks you out of your profile after you finish the story can be more than a little annoying. It’s definitely worth experiencing though and I’m looking forward to the sequel.

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Back on January 20th of this year, I reviewed Sands of Destruction for the Nintendo DS. I felt the game was a very dull and badly broken title, offering little to no challenge or substance whatsoever. It was, at best, a forgettable RPG, and at worst, a reminder of how Sega hasn’t been able to give us a good RPG since the Sega Dreamcast days. However, I did find the core idea of the game quite intriguing. In Sands of Destruction your protagonists are out to destroy the world rather than save it. This is pretty outside the box, and it was made even more enjoyable by the knowledge that here, humans are enslaved by insidious and evil furries, which must be slain for their evil deeds. Hey, any game where furries are irredeemably evil and must be put down can’t be all bad, right?

Well, the website RightStuf.com had a 40% off sale a while back and knowing that the anime stuck with the same core plot idea, but went in a totally different direction, I decided to pre-order the series. My optimistic hope was that the anime would do that core idea justice instead of how dull, cliche and predictable the actual video game was. Oh my, how wrong I was. Sands of Destruction was not only one of the worst animes I’ve seen in a long time, but it managed to make the storytelling in the video game look GOOD by comparison. Ah well, at least I’m only out $20 (although it’s now $29.99 at Rightstuf), which is better than the $49.98 MSRP or even the $39.99 price tag at Amazon.com.

Sands of Destruction the anime is thirteen episodes long and spans two DVD’s. However, I have to admit there is little to no plot to the entire series. Now, this shallowness, combined with both a lack of direction and characterization, is very similar to the video game, but it may surprise you to learn that it’s done in a completely different way from the DS cart. So we have two products with the same name that are equally insipid, but in such a way that the only thing the two really have in common are character designs and the name of the game. Even some character names have been slightly modified in both spelling and pronunciation. Quite possibly the oddest thing is that the game and the anime have completely different voice actors! You would think that this would be the ONE thing both versions of Sands of Destruction would synch up on. Well, that or the pronunciation of names.

The anime is basically a rambling affair where nothing really happens save for the first half of the first episode and the last half of the last episode. Everything else is filler or generic “anime team of characters saves the day and/or stops a menace” for the rest of the series. Considering this is only thirteen episodes long, it’s a bit sad that they couldn’t have actually had some more substance to the series.

Characters may look the same and have roughly the same name, but their personalities and motivations are completely different. Let’s take the main character Kyrie here. In the anime he’s mostly a secondary character until the last episode. In the video game, he is the living incarnation of destruction and he accidentally wipes out his home town and everyone in it. He’s also painfully naive and a totally goody-two-shoes. In the anime, Kyrie is a good-natured human posing as a Beastperson in order to get more money. Beastmen are the rules of this world and humans are second class citizens. In the game, Kyrie is a powerful warrior. Here, he basically cries and hides a lot. For 12 out of the thirteen episodes, Kyrie isn’t even Destruct. Instead, the power of annihilation is a MacGuffin known as the Destruct Orb. It’s not until the last episode that the anime decides to pull the “Oh by the way, Kyrie is the real power of Destruct,” on viewers. People that have played the video game will be fine with this, but for those that have only seen the anime, it’s pretty Deus Ex Machina because there is ONE possible allusion to it in the entire series, and even then it’s very vague and never touched on again. Due to Kyrie’s lack of development in the series and the fact he has somehow forgotten he is the incarnation of destruction itself, this makes the anime come off as if the writers wrote themselves into a corner and to get out just threw crap at the wall to see what stuck. Viewers are left feeling cheated, and it’s just one of the worst last episodes of an anime series I’ve ever seen.

There are a lot of other character changes, all of which are for the worse. Considering how mediocre (at best) the writing was in the game, this is pretty sad. Agan is a neutral and greedy Smuggler instead of second in command of the Golden Lions (a resistance group against the Beastmen who aren’t for genocide). He and Morte have a long and deep history in the game. Here, he’s just a background character. Taupy, the beastman who looks like a bear cub, is a complete badass mercenary complete with a deep, gruff voice, but he’s been turned into the Pikachu of the anime series. Here he’s obsessed with being a hero and he ends every sentence with the word “kuma,” which means bear in Japanese. He’s gone from being the only likable character in the video game to the most annoying character in the anime. They really raped his character here and it’s the most disappointing thing, in a litany of things, about the anime.

The other really big character change is Lady Ri’ah. She’s still half dragon and looks the same, but now instead of being soft spoken and witty, she’s a loligoth with a hair trigger temper that just likes to kill things just because she can. She’s also on the side of the “bad” guys from the video game series, which have been renamed as the World Salvation Committee, which is meant to be a counter to the World Destruction Committee (as compared to the video’s games World Destruction Front). They even changed her name from Ri’ah to Lia and she’s now the sidekick of another character that is eventually on your team, the half-man, half-beastman Naja (which is spelled Nadja in the anime). It’s kind of weird they took the six good guys in the game and turned one of them neutral and two of them into antagonists instead of actually using bad guys from the actual game.

Basically, the Sands of Destruction anime is terrible in simply every way it possibly could be. There is no characterization, no plot development, no decent dialogue and nothing of importance happens. The ending is basically “The status quo is maintained.” Okay then. At least the video game was “so bad it’s good,” but the anime is “so bad it’s terrible.” Even if you liked Sands of Destruction the video game, save yourself six hours of eye gougingly bad anime and do not see this series. Even at $29.99, it’s just too much to pay for excrement.

At least the anime had one positive effect, and that was making me look more favourably upon the video game. Hell, it even has me saying, “Well, maybe the video game’s voice acting wasn’t so terrible after all.” Bottom line – this piece of crap isn’t even worth Netflixing. Just stay away. For the love of all that is holy, just stay away.
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Sequel – A direct sequel to the franchise. This means if it used sprites and was in 2-D, that’s how you want the next game to be as well. This might involve putting the game on a handheld system instead of a console, but it keeps the nostalgia and classic feel alive.

Spin Off – This is where you take the characters or a specific character is a totally different direction from the established franchise. Examples include Luigi’s Mansion, Hey You, Pikachu!, Shadow Hearts (From Koudelka), and so on.

Start Over – This is a reimagining of the series from the ground up. Perhaps it’s time to bring the series into 3-D. Perhaps you want a totally different control scheme or to throw away the old continuity. In a nutshell, this is taking the brand name from the old series and that’s about it. Everything else is new and re-envisioned.

Stay Dead – This is pretty obvious. This is a toxic franchise that you don’t want to see return in any way shape or form. Let the dead rest.

This week we’re not looking so much as a franchise than at a single game. Although this game was deemed merely mediocre and/or highly generic by critics when it came out in 2000, it sold over a million copies and was well received by the average gamer. The The Legend of Dragoon is often brought up as one of the most requested games to receive a sequel. Since there was such a disconnect between critics and users on this game, it seemed like a good idea to choose this game for this week’s column and see if things have changed over the past nine and a half years. Imagine my surprise when I learned only four of our near thirty staffers had actually played the game. The reaction generally was, “There were a lot of more interesting RPG’s (or games in general) back in 2000.” Perhaps this shows that The Legend of Dragoon’s popularity is heavily accented by a small but loud minority on the internet akin to what the Snakes On a Plane hype turned out to be. Let’s check in with our four staffers who actually spent time with The Legend of Dragoon and see what they feel should be done with the franchise.

Alex Lucard – Sequel

Here’s the thing – I didn’t like The Legend of Dragoon. I found it highly generic, predictable and that the game was plagued with way too many random battles. However, I thought the story was interesting, if cliche, and man, was there a lot of protagonist death. However back in the PSX era, Sony’s first party titles all pretty much stunk to me. I mean, I can go over and look at my collection of PSX games and see that the only Sony first party title I own is Arc the Lad Collection and even that had to be brought over and localized by Working Designs. In 2000, I was playing RPG’s like Baldur’s Gate II, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, Dragon Warrior VII, Grandia II, Icewind Dale, Ogre Battle NGPC, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Phantasy Star Online, Pokemon Gold & Silver, Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Eternia/Destiny 2, Timestalkers, Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption and several others. That list doesn’t even include the amazing wrestling, fighting, and shoot ‘em up titles that came out that year as well. To be perfectly blunt, nearly all those games I listed are universally considered to be superior to The Legend of Dragoon and even fans of the game would have a hard time justifying LoD making a list of the top ten RPG’s for the year 2000.

So why do I want a sequel? Simple, because Sony has had ten years to correct the mistakes they made in the first one and there is a large enough fan clamoring on the internet to probably make it worth their time and effort. As well, Sony’s first party developers have improved dramatically over the past decade and god knows they need a solid RPG franchise under their belt as Untold Legends certainly hasn’t been successful. It’s a risk Sony needs to take and something that would actually help bring back some gamers to their system. It’s really a no-lose scenario for Sony and even though I found the original to be lacking, it would be both a smart business move and a smart PR one to test the The Legend of Dragoon waters one more time.

DJ Tatsujin – Sequel

Back when Final Fantasy VII struck paydirt on the Sony Playstation, much like any trendy genre, the RPG found itself in full swing in the latter half of the ’90s. Since Square was making a mint on the Playstation, Sony unsurprisingly felt it had the chance to do the same on its very own system. The result was The Legend of Dragoon, which was supposedly in development for three years when it was finally released in 2000 (1999 in Japan). In my experience, people are really mixed about the game, but I’ve yet to come across someone who claims the game is downright horrible. As such, it is my opinion The Legend of Dragoon attempted enough to separate itself from the pack for its time and I know I wouldn’t be the only person to support a sequel.

The title sold around the one million mark in the United States, receiving a Greatest Hits re-release, so it isn’t crazy to imagine it could have similar success in an updated form. Since the Playstation 3 is scraping for exclusives and Square-Enix isn’t delivering on the oft-fanaticized Final Fantasy VII remake, Sony could really swoop in on basically what was an imitation of that classic RPG. Even a moderately updated PSP release could be the ticket for the portable system where most of its RPGs tend to be mediocre at best. The real-time addition commands and counters (Players attacked in command strings that had strict timing along to onscreen indicators but finishing the string resulted in a devastating special attack.) really shook up the RPG genre for its time and seemed to be the factor between whether or not one enjoyed the title. I did and the interaction made me enjoy the title more than Final Fantasy VII, admittedly.

That’s not to say LoD was a perfect game, however. It surely had its issues and I would even say Final Fantasy VII was a more well-rounded RPG experience. Even when you take that into consideration, LoD had some great cinematics and RPG gameplay even if the story was cliche (Getting caught in the middle of a civil war, for example) and put you in the role of dorky-named characters like Dart from Neet. Everything about the game’s appearance, mapping and environments screams Final Fantasy VII, so it would be a familiar entity even today. There are online petitions abound to have this made into a sequel, and it’s a cause I can support. Morphing into Dragoon forms, real-time attack strings and more went above and beyond the standard menu surfacing and watching animations. If the right minds were put to use, I could see innovation making way once again on current systems.

Chris Bowen – Sequel

On the one hand, The Legend of Dragoon really doesn’t stand out from the JRPGs of its era. Yes, it was a good game (review scores be damned), though as DJ mentioned, it’s very much like Final Fantasy VII stylistically speaking, even if it did have things going for it that FFVII didn’t (like voiceovers). If it were released today, reviewers would be giddy in checking off the stereotypes they’d be finding in the two hours of gameplay most big-site reviewers give games.

On the other, just by default, re-releasing this game as a PS one classic would put it at the top of JRPG releases for 2010; that’s how far the industry has fallen. The “fall” of the JRPG market seems to mirror the “fall” of the anime market, mainly because in both markets the majority of what sells is fucking Moe. For those unaware of what Moe is, take the worst elements of Lucky Star, Magical Teacher Negima! and the abominable K-On. Do those anime appeal to you? Congratulations! You’re destroying the anime market, and the video game market is following close behind with shit like Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (Yes, this is a rogue-like, but seriously), Record of Agarest War and Ar Tonelico. I like JRPGs, and I like breasts, but it’s getting to the point where buying a game in this genre makes me feel like a lolicon fetishist. The American otaku has pretty much destroyed both markets.

The Legend of Dragoon was a fairly serious minded game when it was released ten years ago, and I wouldn’t see that changing unless the game was developed by Namco Bandai. People tend to forget this, but Sony is actually one of the best developers around, as most of what they touch turns to gold. I think if they put their muscle behind a The Legend of Dragoon sequel, not only would it stay true to its roots, but I have some faith that Sony wouldn’t fall into the trap that other companies like Square-Enix fall into that is turning the JRPG market into a parody of itself.

I’m willing to bank on that instead of remembering that we’re talking about a B-list RPG that has fallen into dreaded “cult” status, where noisy fans clamour loudly for a sequel without realizing – or caring – that a sequel will likely not sell for shit. I just know that things are sad when I’m looking to Sony to “save” the JRPG market.

Aileen Coe – Sequel

One of the first things that spring to mind when Legend of Dragoon comes up is this commercial, which I thought was side-splittingly hilarious at the time (what can I say, I can have a broken/odd sense of humor at times). Once you get past the goofy commercial, there’s a RPG with some strong points despite what reviews said. The FMVs and backdrops were impressive for their time, and the game’s soundtrack was decent. However, the character models and in battle voice acting were mediocre. The plot was basically paint-by-numbers: hero’s village is razed, female important to hero (a.k.a love interest) is captured, time to save her and stop the bad guys. Even character designs gave away a lot. Character dressed in red? Gee, wonder what element they’re going to use and what kind of personality they’ll have…

The Additional system was a change in pace from the usual, “select action from menu, sit back and watch character execute it and enemies counter it” in that it added more strategic elements to battles and forced you to pay attention to the battle at hand. You had to time button presses correctly to maximize damage, and defending had more benefit than in many RPGs since it restored a bit of HP along with reducing damage taken. Once you got access to Dragoon abilities, things got even more involved.

All that being said, while it doesn’t quite stand up to the 32-bit era titans like Final Fantasy VII or the first two Suikodens (story/character wise), there’s still enough here to merit a sequel. The combat system would still be worth implementing, and with an overhaul in graphics, increase in or elimination of the irritating inventory limits that led to lots of running back to a village to restock, this could have real potential in the right hands.

End Result :
Sequel: 4
Stay Dead: 0
Spin-Off: 0
Start Over: 0

Well, it appears to be our first unanimous column where everyone actually WANTS a series to continue. Usually when we have a unanimous column, it’s for a series to stay dead. It’s also interesting to note that not only did a mere four members of our staff even bothered with the game when it came out (or in the decade since), but none of us really liked it all that much. This was more a nod to the fact that Sony has improved its quality control in regards to first party titles and that it desperately needs an RPG franchise of its own.

Next week we’ll be looking at a From Software series that was originally developed for the Nintendo Gamecube. It’s actually my second favourite series by them, after Echo Night and it’s a series I’d much rather experience than another King’s Field or Demon’s Souls. See you then!

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I haven’t been to impressed with Sony’s would be recommitment to the PSP. Purchasers of the PSPGo have been screwed overly a lack of content for it and a lot of the DLC only content that has come out since October has been underwhelming at best. This especially true for the PSP Minis. Games like Hero of Sparta and Vempire looked like they might be pretty good, but turned out to suck big time.

So of course, you’re probably wondering why I decided to pick up the latest PSP mini, Dracula – Undead Awakening. Part of it was because I’m a whore for traditional shooters, and this game’s screenshots resembled Ikari Warriors so I decided to give it a try. Plus, it’s a Dracula/vampire game and I’m a sucker for those, name jokes aside.

So is Dracula – Undead Awakening the first good PSP Minis experience I’ve had, or is this another stake in the coffin for the PSP revamp?

Let’s Review

1. Modes

There’s no real plot to speak of here. You’re a vampire hunter and you’re attacking a literally unlimited horde of the undead until you finally die. There is no winning in this game; it’s just seeing how long you can hold out.

There are four modes of play. The first is Survival, which is the standard mode. Here, you have constant enemies coming at you. It starts off slow and with only a few enemies at a time but eventually you get a constant stream of monsters in every direction. Every so often you’ll earn a power up and enemies sometimes drop weapons.

Rush has you start off picking one of three weapons. Unlike Survival, your weapon here as unlimited ammo and you can’t get any new ones. You are then attacking by a barrage of never ending enemies.

Wave Attack is probably the least cruel of the three. Here’ll you have a never ending set of rounds, but a limited number of enemies per round. Instead of dropping items and ammo, enemies will instead drop money. At the end of each round you can spend the money on ammo, health potions and new weapons.

Super Survival is basically the same as Survival, but there are exclusive power-ups like Time Stop or Haste. Vampires also seem unkillable as well.

You are also given a choice of three different stages to play in: Frozen Earth, Grave Park, and Castle Hall. Each stage has a different layout and different monsters to face off against.

For five bucks, I was actually impressed with the amount of modes, variety of monsters and the sheer number of power-ups and perks you could earn. My favourite mode was Survival, although I really enjoyed Wave Attack too. I was surprised how many hours I actually sunk into this and it’s actually a pretty good deal for its price tag.

Modes Rating: Good

2. Graphics

I was pretty impressed with the visuals here. The game runs at 60 frames per second and the animation is quite fluid. Monster look very nice for what they are, and especially so for a Minis game. You’ll encounter severed hands, ghosts, skeletons, weird floppy winged lizard hopping things, a Bela Lugosi inspired Dracula and more. The only weird thing is that the would-be werewolves actually look like the Hyenas from The Lion King. Everything looks nice and the backgrounds are quite large and detailed. In the Frozen Earth, there was an iced over lake and I thought for sure it was going to crack under my feet. Very nice.

One of the other things that is pretty impressive is that such a little game can handle so many independently moving and acting creatures at once without the slightest hint of slowdown. At one point I had over fifty monsters swarming at me and I could easy maneuver around and fire off machine gun bullets without the slightest pause. I’m actually really impressed at how smoothly this game comes off. There are some full budget PSP titles that could learn a few lessons from this game.

You’ll find Dracula: Undead Awakening visually appealing for what it is, especially for the price.

Graphics Rating: Enjoyable

3. Sound

Although there are only two tracks in the entire game, both are extremely catchy. They’re fast paced, hip and the frantic energy of the tracks fit the game nicely. They’re not tracks that will get caught in your head, but you may find yourself shooting to the beat or humming along while playing. The only downside is that the tracks are so limited, but at least what’s here is very nicely done.

Sound effects are equally impressive. Every weapon from the pistol to the BFG (Nice Doom homage) have their own sound along with their own rate of fire. Monsters too have their own noises, be it shrieks, or lightning bolts. Again, you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck. The musical tracks may be very limited, but at least there is a lot of diversity to the sound effects.

Sound Rating: Enjoyable

4. Control/Gameplay

Controls are simple. You use the D-Pad or analog stick to move, the shoulder pads to switch weapons and the shape buttons to fire. Each button fires in the direction that corresponds to the button. For example, Triangle is up, X is down and so on. This of course means you can only fire at 90 degree angles, which is a change from the eight way aiming that can be found in the iPhone version of the game. This is a bit disappointing and it would make the game a bit easier to play. Now, there is a way to get 360 degree aim and that’s to choose to swap the shooting controls to the analog stick and thus movement will be controlled by the shape buttons. It’s pretty awkward to do it this way though, so stick with the default controls.

Now that you know the controls, the rest of the game is easy. Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot and eventually die. Depending on the mode monsters may drop gold, ammo, weapons, or special items. This is completely random and what they drop can either really help or hinder your progress. At certain score intervals, you’ll gain perks. Perks too are random in regards to what you’ll get, but at least you’ll receive a list of four and then choose one of them. Perks can include faster reload, a full health recharge, higher score modifiers, regeneration and more. There are also weird perks like Invulnerability which makes you impervious for thirty seconds but then you die or armour which makes you take less damage but you move a lot slower. It’s just a matter of seeing how long you can survive. For me it’s usually eight minutes, but my longest game has been twenty-one.

I wish the controls would have been as fluid as they are on the iPhone (Even though I haven’t played that version), but what’s here works quite well and I had a lot of fun with it. I loved all the different weapons and knowing that this was a bit of a Kobiyashi Maru made me far more accepting of the 90 degree angle aiming only issue. The gameplay is so fast and frantic and the controls are so simple that you’ll no doubt, like me, find Dracula –Undead Awakening a lot of fun to play.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Enjoyable

5. Replayability

With four different modes and no true way to win, I actually found myself playing this game a lot in order to try and beat my previous high score in each mode. Younger or more casual gamers might find this a bit odd, but this was a fairly common thi9ngs for games in the 70’s and 80’s. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the old Activision title River Raid. I used to play that game on my Atari 2600 all the time with my only motivation being to beat my old score and/or to see how much farther I could get before dying. The same principle applies here.

Basically think of this game as a very gory Tertris or Bejeweled and you’ll have the right idea. You’ll find yourself returning to all four modes in hopes of collecting Nodes (which are dropped on the rare occasions you kill a vampire) and beating your scores. If this doesn’t sound like enough of an impetus for you, it probably means you won’t play this game very often. Otherwise, it’s a great game to play for ten minutes while waiting for something else, like a cake to bake or laundry to finish drying.

Replayability Rating: Above Average

6. Balance

Now I’ve described the game as a no-win scenario where you know you’re going to die – it’s just a matter of when and where. Some people might think that means the game is balls to the walls hard. In fact, Dracula – Undead Awakening is actually nicely balanced save for the Rush mode which is purposely designed to be merciless. With Wave Attack and both Survival modes, enemies start off slow and there are only a few at a time. The better you do and the longer you last, the more will come at you. Eventually, new types of monsters will be added to the mix and then faster or more powerful versions of the older monsters with a pallet swap. At some point a vampire will come at you. Again, this all keeps going on until you die. The goal seems to be to survive long enough to encounter a vampire and kill it. Then you pick up the node. After ten nodes you “rank up,” which is just a pat on the back.

Everything is pretty balanced and you’ll find the game getting noticeably harder as you progress. It’s just a matter of when the sheer numbers overwhelm you. Dracula – Undead Awakening is just the game you’re looking for if you’ve been in search of a real challenge.

Balance Rating: Good

7. Originality

Dracula – Undead Awakening harkens back to a time where games didn’t have a set ending or a last level. It’s very much an homage to the Atari 2600, Collecovision and Odyssey age of gaming. There are so many games like this that I played as a little boy. River Raid, Barnstorming, H.E.R.O. are just a few. Yes D-UA is a throwback to the early 80’s in terms of style and gameplay, but it’s also a perfect example of why so many of these games were highly addictive and fun. It’s nice to see this gameplay aspect revived and it’s even more entertaining to do it with a “hordes of the undead” motif.

Older gamers will find D-UA reminiscent of pre 8-bit era games while newer games will find it pretty outside the box compared to what they normally play. It’s not a highly original game, but it is one that decides to revive nigh-extinct gameplay elements instead of being a carbon copy what’s already been done to death, and I appreciate that.

Originality Rating: Decent

8. Addictiveness

I found it extremely hard to put this gain down. I loved trying out the different weapons, testing out the various modes and/or power-ups and seeing how long I could last. It was always an awesome moment to take out a vampire and snatch up their node, and each play through felt completely different from the last.

In only a few days I racked up well over a dozen hours with this game. I was ecstatic the one time I finally pushed past the twenty minute mark in Survival and although I haven’t done it since, I know I’m going to keep trying.

D-UA has actually been the best Downloadable-only title I’ve picked up from the PSP Store and it’s definitely a game I’ll continue to play for a long time. It’s short, simple and hard to resist.

Addictiveness Rating: Great

9. Appeal Factor

Some gamers may be put off by the idea of a game you can’t “beat” or that never ends, but this was fairly common twenty years ago, and it’s something we still see today with “endless” puzzle games. The game is only as long as you are skilled and the fast, frantic and intense game speed might be too much for some gamers. I personally loved this title. It was a mix of bullet hell shoot ‘em ups, River Raid’s “How long before you die?” aspect and Ikari Warriors. I was hooked after my first play of Survival and this little five dollar game is seeing more playtime than a lot of the thirty or forty dollar PSP games I own.

With four different modes and a constant challenge guaranteed to improve your hand-to-eye coordination, Dracula – Undead Awakening is a game most gamers will get their money’s worth out of and then some. It’s definitely worth the download.

Appeal Factor Rating: Above Average

10. Miscellaneous

Dracula – Undead Awakening is not only proof than a simple game can be fun, but that there’s still hope for the whole PSP Minis concept. Many PSP Mini games are badly ported iPhone or cell phone games that cost far more than the original superior version. Not so with D-UA. This is quality game through and through and I’m still shocked at how low the sticker price is with this. Four modes, three level designs and a ton of monsters and customization gives you a game you may not be able to beat, but it certainly is one you can have a lot of fun with. About the only thing I could ask for is a two player co-op mode. Supposedly this is also coming to WiiWare and DSiware, so Nintendo fans will get a chance to experience it as well!

Miscellaneous Rating: Good

The Scores
Modes: Good
Graphics: Enjoyable
Sound: Enjoyable
Control and Gameplay: Enjoyable
Replayability: Above Average
Balance: Good
Originality: Decent
Addictiveness: Great
Appeal Factor: Above Average
Miscellaneous: Good
FINAL SCORE: ENJOYABLE GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
At only $4.99, Dracula –Undead Awakening is a no-brainer. The frantic no-win scenario gameplay is extremely addictive and a lot of fun. The graphics and sound are limited in comparison to a full budget PSP release, but what’s here is done exceptionally well. This is easily the best PSP Minis release to date and it’s so well done, you’ll feel like you ripped poor Chillingno off. If you’ve got the five bucks to spare, download this from the PSP store as you’ll definitely get your money’s worth and then some.

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2009 was a bit of a disappointment for fighting games here in North America. Street Fighter IV was good, but nowhere up to the level of previous Capcom titles, a point made abundantly clear with the re-release of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, which in itself was a bare-bones release compared to the original Dreamcast version, lacking all the thrill of unlocking things for oneself. BlazBlue was good for what it was, but it didn’t impress me. King of Fighters XII was so craptastic I refused to review it and I’m a dyed in the wool SNK fan. Chuck Platt and Mark B. both hated it though. What does it say about 2009 when the two best fighters released were King of Fighters ‘98 Ultimate Match and Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves, both of which were RE-RELEASES from a decade (or more) ago? The other good fighting games of 2009 were either PC exclusives like Zeno Clash or never made it stateside like the latest Melty Blood game. Still, although there was no truly GREAT new fighters released in 2009 here in North America, we did see the return to prominence for a genre I’ve been enchanted with since the beginning of the genre itself, although this was mainly done through the re-release of three of the best games in the history of the genre.

As you may imagine, I was ecstatic to hear about Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom when it was first mentioned in Japan, but like many people, I thought this had about as much chance of making it to the US as Dream Mix TV: World Fighters did – none. So I was shocked and full of boundless optimism when I heard Capcom was taking the chance and bringing it stateside. I was a little hesitant when I heard it was Wii exclusive, but then I’ve enjoyed my time with fighting games on the Wii, be it new titles like Castlevania: Judgment or VC releases like The King of Fighters ‘94 or Eternal Champions thanks to my Neo Geo Stick 2 and/or my Hori made Wii fighting stick, so I know a fighting game can work (and work well) on the Wii. The only question left was, would Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom be one of them?

Let’s Review

1. Story/Modes

There really isn’t a lot of story here. It’s Capcom characters versus Tatsunoko characters. Tatsunoko is a pretty big anime company now owned by Takara TOMY and although its most famous character in America (Speed Racer) isn’t in the game, there are some pretty well known characters in this game, albeit in Americanized form. You might recognize the three Gatchaman characters from G-Force or Battle of the Planets. Gatchaman became Eagle Riders and Tekkaman Blade became Technoman here in the late 1990’s. Karas is pretty much the only Tatsunoko property in the video game that wasn’t drastically changed in name or tone for US audiences.

There are other anime series Tatsunoko was involved in which Westerners will probably recognize easier such as Samurai Pizza Cats, Neon Genesis Evangelion , Serial Experiments Lain, Beyblade and provided financial backing for Macross/Robotech, but unfortunately, none of those characters appear in the game, as it probably would have helped to have one Tatsunoko character that was recognizable to the under 30 crowd in North America. But I digress. Basically the reality of the two universes have merged somehow and everyone is fighting for survival until you get to the End Boss and we learn a Bakugan is behind it all. The plot is pretty non-existent, but each character has their own individual ending and each one is pretty awesome. For my money, Morrigan has the best (and funniest) ending, although I am pretty biased towards Darkstalkers.

The various play modes give you a nice variety of experiences. There’s the standard Arcade Mode, which is eight stages of fighting goodness. Versus mode is a two player local battle. Training is self-explanatory and a great way to test out various control schemes to see what works best for each character. Survival is where your team of two characters keeps fighting until you finally die. Time Attack is trying to beat the game in the quickest time you can. Shop is where you can spend Zenny Points on unlockable movies, artwork, and extra costumes, but oddly, no clips of any of the Tatsunoko animes. Gallery is where you can view your unlocked items, and then there is the on-line play component. This is a pretty standard list for any fighting game these days, but wait – there’s more.

When you beat the game, press one of the number buttons immediately. This starts a simple platformer game featuring Doronjo and her two sidekicks on a bicycle. You press the number buttons to jump up and collect letters from the credits. Each of these letters is worth Zenny and playing this game through the credits can double or even triple your Zenny output. This goes a long way in terms of unlocking things. As well, if you catch the gold letters than eventually spell out “Thank You For Playing,” you’ll unlock yet another mode known as “Extra Game” which is an awesome four player co-op traditional Shoot ‘Em Up game. Holy hell, is this awesome.

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with everything Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom had to offer. The game features some of the best (and most lucid) endings in a non-Darkstalkers Capcom made fighter and I loved the two hidden modes and all of the options TvC contained. Simply put, Capcom put a lot of passion and love into this game, and it shows.

Story/Modes Rating: Great

2. Graphics

I have to admit the visuals are an acquired taste, but after a while I really grew to enjoy them save Morrigan’s finishing pose as there is some blurring and the model just looks deformed. Insert your joke about a new Darkstalker sprite still not being as good as the other characters here. Shades of Capcom vs. SNK. I do love all the background visuals. These are some really nice stages and they add a lot of character to the game.

The ending graphics were by far the best in the game, even though they were static illustrated images by UDON. It doesn’t matter though as the art is so awesome, you’ll wish Capcom would find away to animate these into a game. I also really liked the character portraits. The art is very reminiscent of the styles used in the Capcom Vs. SNK portraits and I really liked seeing that make a comeback. I’m pretty sure it’s the same Ryu and Chun-Li, albeit touched up though.

There’s no slowdown in this game at all, which is key for a fighter, especially a tag-based one. Everything is so fluid and precise with movements. My only complaint is that sometimes, the animation for a Hyper Combo is so jarring from what was actually on the screen a second ago, it throws you for a loop. This really only applies to the Hyper Combos that require three bars of the HC gauge though.

Overall, the visuals for the game are quite nice once you get used to them. They aren’t amazing, and it’s by no means the best looking game on the Wii, but Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom has a style all its own and an enjoyable one at that.

Graphics Rating: Good

3. Sound

I really enjoy the score for every stage in the game. Each track fits the location nicely and I’ll occasionally get one stuck in my head. The voice acting is awesome, although Zero sounds like Demitri from Darkstalkers , but that’s probably a plus. Frank West might be my favourite character in terms of speech, but that’s only because his lines are so out of place it’s nearly Engrish. It’s just some strange Dead Rising choices that I love for the cheesiness of it all. Especially, “What the hell?” when he wins. The rest of the voice acting is just as good and although almost all of it is in Japanese, I can’t imagine any of these characters in English besides Frank West and POSSIBLY Tekkaman Blade since I own the Teknoman anime.

Sound effects are also well done and it’s almost as much fun to listen to the game as it is to play it. I’m rather surprised that Capcom didn’t consider doing a soundtrack with this game, but I guess they were taking enough of a chance releasing it in the US in the first place. Top notch audio all around.

Sound Rating: Great

4. Control and Gameplay

I’ll be doing a feature next week on all seven different controllers I used with this game, but for now I’ll sum it up like this: You don’t need to purchase the $80 Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom official fight stick from MadCatz as it’s the most expensive. I picked it up because I was able to get it for $27, but there are many other ways to play the game and all are cheaper. Hell, the MadCatz fight stick is $30 more expensive than the HORI stick and HORI is pretty much the gold standard for fight sticks. So there you go.

The Wiimote only control scheme actually works really well and can actually be quite fun, even for those of us who insist on a proper fight stick with eight-point digital inputs instead of analog ones, or the other intricacies that can make or break a fighting game experience. For those of you who aren’t that anal retentive with fighting games, it’s akin to why swimmers shave their heads before sectionals or state. Those few seconds saved by removing the drag of hair can win (or cost if you don’t) the race. So too can be said about a normal joystick (especially the default pieces of crap that come with your Xbox and Playstation systems). The Wiimote scheme is almost akin to SNK Vs. Capcom for the Neo*Geo Pocket Colour, but with some updates. It’s a great way to learn fighting games or for people who love them but can’t manually pull off Super Combos or find themselves doing a Dragon Punch instead of a Hadoken. The downside is that you can’t choose between light, medium, and fierce attacks, so in a PvP setting, some able to use all three attacks individually will have an advantage, especially if they know what they are doing. The Wiimote only way is actually a pretty fresh and fun way to play and although you end up losing the ability to do some moves, the ones you can do can be pulled off easily and flawlessly. Again, this will really help newcomers to the genre.

The Wiimote-Nunchuk mode is god awful, if only because you are stuck using the nunchuk’s control stick for inputting commands and doing moves. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

The Classic Controller and GameCube controls are both pretty tight; just remember to use the D-Pad instead of the sticks and you’ll have a better chance of pulling off the moves seamlessly. I find the Classic Controller to be the better of the two just due to the shape of the GameCube controller and the default button choice. As you can change things around, the button layouts don’t matter much though.

The sticks are great. Out of the three sticks, I do feel the official stick for the game is the weakest of the three due to the internal parts. Madcatz has improved a lot over the past year or two, but it’s still not as good as either the Neo*Geo or the Hori controller, both of which are cheaper. Control-wise it’s all minor things having to do with interior parts and stuff I won’t bored the majority of you with. Basically just remember you can get a better stick for about $30 bucks less than the official stick, so obviously that’s the better choice.

Regardless which controller scheme you go for (save the Wiimote-Nunchuk choice), everything works exceptionally well and inputting commands are both solid and tight. I never had a mix-up entering manual commands or any delay between the command and my character doing it. Even with the Wiimote only controls I could enter manual commands as I would with a normal fighting control scheme and the game took them just fine.

Like most fighters you have a super gauge in the corner of your side of the screen. This fills by doing and/or taking damage. Once you have at least one ball you can do Hyper Combos which are powered-up versions of your special moves. There are also extremely powerful Hyper Combos that require three bars of the gauge to be filled before they can be executed. You can have up to five bars at a time.

The other usual aspect of TvC is actually pretty common for Capcom Vs. style games, which involves tag team commands. You’ll play as one fighter at a time, but you can tag out to the back-up player or call them in for a double team move. You can also use your partner for a counter, an air combo, and two different variations of a team Hyper Combo.

There are two unique things to TvC. The first is the Mega Crash. This move uses two bars from your gauge and a little bit of life. The return is a barrier that hurtles your opponent back if they touch it. There is also something called a “Baroque Combo” which involves sacrificing the red part of your life bar in exchange for new and extended combos and extra damage.

Overall I was pretty impressed with the controls and how solid they were. I actually found the game to be a better overall experience than SFIV and I really enjoyed the creativity with the different schemes.

Tastunoko Vs. Capcom is one of the best fighters Capcom has put out in years. Different controllers give you a very different experience and it’s fun to try out all the different ways one can play this game.

Control and Gameplay Rating: Great

5. Replayability

With five characters to unlock, along with the shooter mini-game and a ton of extras to buy in the TvC store, you can spend a lot of time trying to get everything in this game. Sure, there’s not as much as we could find in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 or Capcom Vs. SNK, but there is still a lot to do here. When you factor in online play, the multiple control schemes and the fact this is easily the best fighting game on the Wii, you have a game that you can easily come back to countless times and always have a different experience. Online play can be a little off if you’re playing Wired vs. Wireless, but there’s no real way to tell which your opponent has until you’re into a match. Just a head’s up.

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is packed to the brim with enough to keep even the most ardent fighting gamer busy for some time. The extra games like the platformer and shooter are just gravy on top of that.

Replayability Rating: Great

6. Balance

There are two ways to talk about balance in this game: Computer AI and Character Tiers. In terms of Computer AI, you have five difficulty settings as well as time options, damage levels, and how many Hyper Combo bars you start off with in your gauge. All of these are quite adjustable and guarantees any gamer will be able to set TvC’s AI to a challenge that is tough but not unbeatable for their skill level. The lowest setting is pretty easy, with the first round team just letting you “perfect” them. The three stage end boss can still kill you with certain combos pretty easily though, so you’ll still have to remember to block. The highest end difficulty is just that and I had to beat it with characters I knew by heart like Ryu, Morrigan, and Chun-Li before I went to the other characters. Overall balance here is amazing and I was really impressed by how noticeably different each level was.

Then there are the tiers. The game has been drastically overhauled from the original Japanese version (Both arcade and console). Character infinites are gone and everyone’s been tweaked so that the game is far more balanced that what Japan has. This really impressed me and it was interesting to see which characters. I ended up going 40-0 in PVP matches before stopping. My main character? Morrigan. My secondary switched between Ryu, Chun-Li, Tekkaman Blade, Zero, Frank West, Karas, and Alex. Ryu, Batsu. and Zero are the most common characters I played against. Tatsunoko really isn’t getting a lot of play online, but then most Americans have no idea who most of these characters are.

I mainly use Morrigan because a lot of gamers don’t know her unless you’re a big fighting game fan. I love Darkstalkers (although I’d rather have Donovan, Talbain, or Lord Raptor) and her Valkyrie Turn Hyper Combo is insanely powerful against the end boss and the two giant characters. Plus she’s nicely balanced. I definitely wouldn’t have put Morrigan in top tier with the Arcade or Japanese TvC, but she’s improved rather nicely here. This is just one example of how characters have been balanced quite nicely. There are definitely characters that are weaker than others. I find Mega Man and Doronjo to be pretty inferior to the rest of the cast for example (MM’s Hyper Combos can be nasty though). Still, this is one of the most balanced Capcom fighters I’ve ever played, which is pretty impressive.

The important thing to note is that there are no joke characters – merely funny ones. The game is laugh out loud amusing at times, but every character is quite good, as long as you spend time with them. I could make a case for Roll being a top tier character as easily as I could Chun-Li or Tekkaman. Besides Mega Man and Doronjo (who I could just be BAD with), the giants have a bit of handicap due to their size, lack of speed, and inability to have a tag partner. That just means it requires some thought and skill to make them works.

To sum it up. Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is one of the most balanced fighting games I’ve ever played and I’ve loving every minute of it. THIS is what SFIV should have been like in terms of balance and engine quality (Save for the online lag). This is what KoF XII should have been like. This, my friends, is a fighting game done right and I love this thing so very, very much.

Balance Rating: Great

7. Originality

For all intents and purposes this is Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 but with Tatsunoko characters instead of Captain America and Doctor Doom. I like the new additions to the tag style gameplay and I’ve very happy with the balance and character list, even though I could think of half a dozen characters to add to each side of the game (Racer X and the Lich from Dungeons and Dragons: The Arcade Game for example would make me happy). The end boss is similar in style to the MvC2 boss as well, with its three stages, but it’s also a lot easier.

I loved the Platformer during the credits but the Super Smash Bros. series did something similar in Melee but as a shooter. The four player co-op shoot ‘em up is pretty original and highly enjoyable and might be the most creative aspect of the game.

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom definitely has the trappings of Capcom’s Vs. series that has been going strong for over a decade now, but it also managed to stand out from the back thanks to a distinctive art style, a new franchise to couple with, new gameplay strategies and some extra modes of play. It’s not going to win any games for originality, but compared to a lot of fighters over the past few years, TvC feels like a breath of fresh air.

Originality Rating: Decent

8. Addictiveness

I unlocked everything in the game my very first day with the title. That doesn’t mean the game is short – it means I couldn’t put my controller down. I went through two sets of rechargeable batteries in my wireless sensor bar because I played so much. I beat the game with Morrigan, then Ryu, then Alex, than Roll, then Mega Man Volnutt, then Frank West, and then Zero before I went to get some liquids in me and then went for the same pattern with seven Tatsunoko characters so I could unlock the three characters from their side. Then I spent several hours slaughtering competition online, and then I went back to unlocking everyone else that I could. Then once I had finally beat the arcade mode with all 26 characters, I called it a night. I was obsessed and I could barely take a break. I wanted to see all the endings, the hyper combos, and see what my eventual highest scoring team would be. Oddly enough it was with Mega Man and Roll, even though I don’t think Mega Man (or myself playing as) is very good. Surprise!

Tatsunoko is a hard game to put down. I loved it whether I was playing Wiimote only, or honking around with one of my stick against friends I know that are tournament level players as well. It was fun like I haven’t had with a fighter, or on the Wii, for quite some time. This is a definite permanent addition to my collection and the great thing is, no matter what your skill level is, you’ll be able to embrace this game with equal fervor.

Addictiveness Rating: Unparalleled

9. Appeal Factor

A couple of years ago I would have said fighting games had fallen from the biggest genre we had in the early 1990’s to a small niche genre populated mainly by longtime SNK zealots. However, with games like SFIV, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat Vs. DCU, and several other games all having very public releases, along with strong critical and consumer reactions, we may be seeing the fighting game genre’s return to a new golden age. Of course, I’m probably being optimistic, but with games like TvC, it’s hard not to be. Pretty much every long time fighting game fan, regardless of whether their favourite title is Aggressors of Dark Kombat or Clay Fighter, they will like, if not outright love Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom.

For people that generally don’t like fighting games, or simply aren’t very good at them, the different control schemes will really help one out here. You can even further simplify controls in the Options menu, which allows games of varying skills play together with at least SOME degree of challenge. I love this. None of my face-to-face friends play fighting games unless they are desperately pressing buttons and it’s no fun for me or them to play a game where I perfect them in ten seconds. That won’t happen with TvC because they’ll finally be able to do all the cool moves they used to see people to in the arcade with a single button and/or D-pad press instead of trying to figuring out exactly how I’m wiggling that fight stick. This my friends is the game to get people of all ages, genders, skill levels and genre preferences into fighting games. It may not be the GREATEST fighting game ever made, but it’s one that anyone can play and fall in love with and that just might be more important. Not just for enjoyment’s sake, but for keeping the genre alive.

Appeal Factor: Good

10. Miscellaneous

As you can no doubt tell after 4,000 words and eight full pages of my praising this game, I think Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is pretty hunky dory. I love the cast, although I’d have loved a few more characters, but I suppose that’s what DLC is for if the rumours are true. I love the different control schemes and how easy this game is for newcomers or people that tend to suck as fighters. I can’t stress enough how excited people are when they can finally pull off a Shoryuken for the first time. Even longtime fighting vets like myself will be able to enjoy the Wiimote only controls as a change of pace from using a fight stick. There are a ton of unlockables and best of all, the game opens up people to experience Tosunoko anime characters for the first time, which may in turn lead to them purchased (or Netflix’ing) the series that are available here in the US. I know it made me want to dust off Teknoman or put the Karas films in my Netflix queue. Best of all this game reminds me why I fell in love with fighters and why my Sega Saturn and Dreamcast collections are packed with fighters ranging from X-Men Vs. Street Fighter to umm…Battle Monsters.. What? I said I like the genre, didn’t I?

Basically Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is everything I wished either Street Fighter IV or KoFXII had been. It’s fun, frantic, well balanced, eats up a ton of my time, and never fails to bring a smile to my face. 2010 is shaping up to be an amazing year for gaming and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is going to be remembered as one of the best titles to hit US shores when the year is said and done.

Miscellaneous Rating: Unparalleled

The Scores
Story/Modes: Great
Graphics: Good
Sound: Great
Control and Gameplay: Great
Replayability: Great
Balance: Great
Originality: Decent
Addictiveness: Unparalleled
Appeal Factor: Good
Miscellaneous: Unparalleled
FINAL SCORE: GREAT GAME!

Short Attention Span Summary
Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is easily the best fighting game Capcom has released in years. It’s exceptionally well balanced, has a diverse cast list that doesn’t suffer from “fireball bros. syndrome”, and is both visually and aurally enjoyable. The game also boasts five different controller set-ups for a gamer to use, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Although I’ll probably stick to my Hori or Neo*Geo sticks, the Wiimote only control scheme is so different from anything I’ve played before (save SNK Vs. Capcom on the NGPC) that I find it charming and a nice change of pace. This is one of those rare games that does everything exceptionally well (except maybe the online lag that can sometimes occur) and it’s accessible to all gamers, whether they’re an SNK frame counter or their fighting game skills only extend to Super Smash Bros. I’m still a bit shocked Tatsunoko vs. Capcom made it stateside, but I’m overjoyed that it has. This is amazing game that deserves to be experienced by everyone. If you have a Wii, you owe it to yourself to pick this up, not only for the sheer amount of fun awaiting you, but to help convince Capcom and Eighting that we need a sequel!
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