RANT: Wild Arms 4 - How the Mighty Have Fallen

Warning, most likely contains massive spoilers.

Last night, I finished Wild Arms 4, and as the tears did stream from the eyes of my childhood, my present self only frowned. The game is terrible. Well, the game itself could only be considered bad; it only goes the extra mile into total crap on the virtue that it is a Wild Arms game, and therefore has a certain quality to uphold. I have the same problem with this game that I did with Final Fantasy XII, in that, if it was called something different, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t play it, but I wouldn’t care either. It’s the fact that it bears the name of something close to me that hurts so badly, and for that, it must be punished. I could go on for ages about everything wrong with it … so I will. Here is what I’m sure will be a massive list, in no particular order, of what I believe was done wrong. I’m not expecting everyone to agree, but these are the reasons why I, as a fan, feel this game is a total letdown.

A quick aside before we begin: I don’t think FFXII is a terrible game. It’s beautiful, sounds great, and is well written. The only problem I have is the combat. My spite comes purely from the fact that it’s way too different; why change what’s worked for 20 years? Plus, if you’re going to make an RPG where you roam around during battle, such as Star Ocean or Tales of the Abyss, I need the ability to attack, dodge/block and flee properly. The closest thing FFXII comes to this is choosing an attack, waiting for the ‘loading-move-please-wait-patiently-okay-go!’ bar to fill up, and then, once your turn happens, becoming a sitting duck. You’ve got no way to defend yourself, and running only serves to put distance between you and the enemy, which they will ignore when they attack, hitting you with a “close range” attack from across the map. So yeah, good production value, but swing and a miss in terms of the whole game play thing.

And now, the abysmal experience that is Wild Arms 4. Again, these are in no particular order, except for the first two which I believe are the most glaring errors.

Game…this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.


1. Not Nearly Western Enough. This game takes the established canon and almost completely ignores it. Does anyone remember the futuristic levels in Crash Bandicoot 3, like Future Frenzy? Remember how they were like parodies of a futuristic world? That’s what this game feels like, only with an “old west” backdrop. I mean, it starts off in a floating town with cloaking capabilities, so that the rest of the world can’t see it…why? The only guns you use in the game are made from dust which is apparently virus sized machines that reform themselves into a gun [an ARM] when someone who can use them touches them, and when they are fired, you get this sickening mix of a low powered rifle crack and ‘pew-pew’ sounds from some kind of laser weapon. In WA3, even just the title screen has the greatest old gun sound that you’ve ever heard, just this awesome crash that sounded like a cast iron rifle that’s never been cleaned, and, by right, should never. It’s a disgrace. Yes, I know there was advanced technology in the first 3 games, but it was always alien. There was a distinct difference between the alien or demon technology and the rustic western style of the protagonists, and it made you fall in love with the iron and dirt of the frontier.

Next is the clothing, which seems unimportant but it’s a very noticeable issue. The first three games had a wide variety of clothing for both the playable and non-playable characters, but the theme was unified amongst them. In WA4, the main character has a dress shirt, an oversized jacket, and a friggin’ neckerchief, while his backup male lead is walking around in a jacket, leather pants and a gravity defining scarf that will blow as if facing a wind machine at all times, despite your location. Atmosphere broken, cool points withheld. Even the girls, one of whom wears a hoop-esque dress and the other a large overcoat and a sweater/tie, do nothing to help things. The NPCs are all in modern-day casual clothes, except for the military types who’re in bland fatigues. I did, however, see three people dressed as they should be (i.e. overcoat, cowboy hat, bullet belt) and spent a few minutes with them before begrudgingly going about my business.

The setting is also off. About a third of the environments look in place, and the rest look to be about 100 years passed the mark. Most of the towns are cobblestoned and built up, with streetlights and – OMG, what is this?! Any answer other than “failure” is unacceptable.


2. Gameplay/Design. Yes, this is a rather broad category, but it’s true. The worst of the worst has to be the battle system. The battle field is divided up into 7 hexagons, which then form a large hexagon. When a battle starts, each player is placed in a random hex not occupied by an enemy. You can move to adjacent hexes and occupy the same hex as an ally. When a hex is attacked by a player or enemy, every target in it takes damage, and the same goes for healing. This means that, if you’re unlucky enough to have everyone start in the same hex, you could be dead before your first turn. Outstanding. The system as a whole is difficult to get used to and even harder to enjoy.

Another major problem is that they took out the tool system. Yeah, let that sink in for a bit. No more of everyone having their own set of tools that you have to use intuitively to solve puzzles; now, all we have whenever we come across a puzzle (which isn’t a whole lot, relatively) is all that’s been provided in the current and possibly surrounding rooms. So yeah, thinking has pretty much gone out the window when there is a switch and a glowing sword right next to it. Gee, I wonder if I should smack the switch with the sword? Nah, I think I’ll run into the closed door for 10 minutes and then give up and consult GameFaqs. Before I even encountered the first enemy, I noticed what they’d done to this, and immediately, my heart sunk.

The last major problem is that you can jump. Yes, you can jump, and what does the power to jump inevitably bring in an RPG? Crappy platforming! And this game has it in spades. Coupled with the fact that you can slow down time for a brief period and you have a smoothie of crippling clichés that ruined the game from the word go.

Another problem I have, although much smaller, is the games numbering. By this, I mean that the numbers are way too big. You start off the game at level 1 with something like 2500 health, which doesn’t increase much as the game progresses. What this does for me, at least, is provide no satisfaction in getting stronger. At first, I thought this was absolutely ludicrous, but after seeing how much damage the enemies do, I realized it was necessary to even make it past the prologue (if you can call it that).

That’s another thing, the game doesn’t have prologues! In the first three games, each playable character had their own prologue, which not only served as their tutorial, but interactively told their back story. This allowed us to avoid the huge wall of text that would merely explain who they were, and allowed us to experience it instead. By doing this, we developed a relationship and actually cared about the characters. Not so much in WA4. Not only didn’t I care about the characters, I despised them, because when they were being whiney and obnoxious (and they never weren’t), I didn’t even have the slight emotional connection to fall back on.

I have three more gripes before moving on, and the first are the cut scenes. The cut scenes, as I am ashamed to call them, consist of still images that change (sometimes) as the characters’ emotions change based on the written dialogue. As bad as this is, it only becomes worse when you encounter them pretty much every time you change screens in some levels, realize they’re unskippable, and have no substance.

Secondly, is the functionality of the Black Market. Once you obtain the Black Pass, you can access the Black Market, standard stuff. However, this wouldn’t be WA4 if it didn’t try and ruin things, so what we end up with is a store where you can buy very expensive items, some of which are necessary for fighting Ragu O’Ragla, the series’ ultimate foe. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, what if I told you that you had to buy these things with your hard earned LEVELS. Yes, that’s right; you need to sacrifice the levels of your characters, in order to purchase an item, which allows you to fight an extremely strong boss. It’s too bad that once you buy what you need, you’re TOO WEAK TO USE THEM. My god, game, what did we do to deserve this? Did too many people make it through the 100 level dungeon of WA3 – without saving, I might add – to take on Ragu? Now, I wasn’t about to invest the extra time in this game to get to Ragu, but I’d be willing to bet that they messed him up, too.

Lastly, is the linearity of the entire experience. If you thought FFX was linear, then you clearly haven’t played this. The difference? FFX was awesome, which made up for it. This game is literally a bunch of straight line levels with invisible walls to make it look more expansive, strung together in sequence. And for what purpose you might ask? Why, to progress the story, of course! Pretty much every time you enter a new part of a level, you get another one of those terrible slideshow cut scenes again, which only serves to remind you that you couldn’t care less about what’s going on. This leads us into our next major point…


3. Storyline. They really dropped the ball here. One of the most engaging aspects of this series is its narrative. The first three games all gave me quite an emotional response throughout, culminating in their endings, all wonderful. This game, as I’ve mentioned, did not live up. The story centers on Jude, a boy from the aforementioned floating town thing, who is a gene driver, someone who is able to control the tiny machine things that make the arms. The military comes and breaks their town, capturing all of its residents, except Jude, who is helped out by Arnaud, a mercenary (the guy in all the leather). Eventually, they meet Yulie, who can control ARMs. The military group who busted up the floating town wants to capture her because they have an ARM, too, and they need her to power it up. Then, they meet Raquel, who wears the coat because her body’s messed up, but nobody knows that and she comes with them. Basically through the whole game, the group is on the run from the military group. As you can probably tell, it’s not very engaging and is extremely dialogue-heavy, which only serves to inflate the lack of substance.

A main theme of the story is being an adult. Since the oldest in the group is nineteen, I think, every chance that there is to talk about how awesome it is to be an adult and what responsibility is like is taken with gusto. It gets so awkward that you really can’t understand, unless you experience it for yourself. By the time the game is over, it feels more like a PSA than anything. It goes way over the top, and again only serves to try to hide the fact that there is very little by way of story. There’s so little, in fact, that I really can’t say much else about it, so…moving on.

4. Music. Eh, I really don’t have a whole lot to say about this either. The music isn’t that bad; it just doesn’t have the same spirit as its predecessors. It doesn’t really incorporate the same instruments, ditching the acoustic guitar for an electronics board, and does more to let me down and suck the fun out of the experience. I absolutely loved the music of the first three; it did everything it could to capture and really draw you into the game. The mood created was beyond that of even some of the early Final Fantasy titles (“To Zanarkand” and “Someday the Dream Will End” from FFX will always hold the top spot, though). This game, sadly, just doesn’t deliver.


5. Random Grievances. The following are things that I can’t really categorize, but nonetheless took away from the experience.

Loreless. The series has a wealth of stories and lore that is never accessed in WA4, and thus majorly disconnects from the series. A lot of the fun in the previous titles came from the engrossing story and all the details put into the game’s background. WA4 ignores this, and suffers for it. As a result of there being no focus on the world’s deities, the game has FIVE guardians. One for each of the basic elements: fire, earth, water, wind, and Ordynuk, if you’re on a blank hex when you summon. Now, I know there was a massive drop in the number of useable guardians from the first two games to the third, but come on, FIVE!? Oh, and by the way, Ordynuk (the healer) is no longer a unicorn; he’s some kind of flying snake thing. What about flying snake thing says “healing”? And just as a final kick, none of the available guardians are the Beast Lords. That’s right, no Zephyr, who had a major story role in WA1; no Lucied, who, in one way or another, has been a part of each of the first three; and no Justine or Raftina, who were just handy to have around. (Seriously, how did they cut out Lucied?).

No Baskars! Yes, the Baskars are apparently no longer with us, their village reduced to rubble with quite a bit of sand covering it. Maybe this is why there’s no lore. Tim, Gallows, Baskar chief guy with the big fluffy dog, we miss you, but maybe you’re better off not being a part of this one.

No Ex File Keys. You still get Ex File keys in the game, but they are not items that you collect in your inventory, and you don’t know if you’ve gotten them until you’ve beaten the game. So if you’re going for all them (don’t know why you would, but IF) you have to manually keep track of what ones you’ve earned. Thanks, game, for withholding this simple convenience.

Swords…? Never bring a knife to a gun fight, but Raquel does just that! Mind you, it’s a big sword and does the most damage in the game, but still, once the enemy has upgraded to cannons and bio-weapons that also use cannons, it’s time to upgrade to a six shooter, at least. The other two support characters go even further into uselessness. Arnaud uses throwing knives and Yulie uses – and I’m not making this up – three rings that are linked together. I’m not quite sure how this does any damage, but, at this point, I really don’t expect any less. Yes, I know that both Jack and Rudy used swords in WA1, but I can’t recall any of their enemies having guns, except for the Golems, although I’m not 100% on that. Also, there were an assortment of weapons in WA2, which were strange, but, even then, they still weren’t going up against tanks and ground assault vehicles.

Badges of Failure. This game uses badges to do the things that the items you could equip to your guardian mediums did in WA3. The problem is that at the highest level, you only have room for 3 badges at once on any given player. This limits you from beefing up your characters, which is disappointing (one thing I can say though is, if you manage to get the Sheriff Star, you’re pretty much invincible).

The Ending. Fitting that I should end this with how terrible the ending was. The ending takes the crappy slideshow to a whole new level, resorting to still images with a block of text saying something to the effect of “Jude did this and lived happily ever after”. Show, don’t tell. C’mon, game, this is day one of creative writing class. If you want to, say, show me that two people are now together, show a tiny cut scene of them walking together, slightly aged, with a child running around with them. If you do this, I will be able to piece together that the characters in question have gotten together and started a family. It’s not that complicated. But really, after the crap I endured while playing this game, did I really expect a good ending? The answer is no, but I expected something better than what I got, which was a brief wrap-up of each character’s childhood and a description of their adult life. I guess they’re finally adults. Maybe now they’ll shut up about it.

Phew, feels good to get that off my chest. Shockingly, after this, there was another game thrown together, but it was made in limited quantities, so I haven’t gotten a hold of that one yet. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to acquire it, but after playing this, I’ve got no expectations about its quality.

On a side note, Grandia 1 just got released on the PlayStation network! I hope to get it ASAP, and once I finish it, I’ll be doing a retro review of it (hopefully it doesn’t end up in the rant section). I’ve been trying to hold back on doing reviews of old games, since, at this stage, it’s kind of moot to be talking about PS2/PSX games, but since it’s been re-released and is now easily attainable, I feel it’s relevant again.

That’s all for now, reviews of new games in May!

-AtomicPineapple

Oh my, how the time has passed -- Oldies, but Goodies.

Sweet merciful crap, it's been a long time since my last post. University sucks if you plan on doing well and doing other things simultaneously. And so, since it is still in session, I don't have time to do any reviews of late. BUT! I did do a couple of reviews years ago and posted them on Gamespot, so I've decided to post them here to break up the masive time gap (that being said, I haven't stolen from XxDeadeyesxX, that's me). The reviews are of old games, so just read them for the nostalgiagasm. Reviews of new games will be up around May. Enjoy!



The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time -- Say Hello to My Little Fairy.

How can you describe a game that practically defined it's time? Game of the year in '97 and a benchmark for many of our childhoods.

There's so many great things about this game, a lot of which you really have experience yourself to get the full effect. Music that is rivaled by few, the composed melodies entrusted to you and your ocarina has a wide range of styles and scale. Beautiful sceneries (amazing for the technology of the time, even if it were a PlayStation game) brought Hyrule to life in the epic adventure of Link, a fairy boy form the Kokiri Forest who has been summoned by the Great Deku Tree, the gaurdian of the Forest.

After liberating the deity of the evils that lurked within him, he reveals Link's destiny, which is to save Hyrule from a great danger in the form of Ganondorf, the King of Thieves (and later Evil). Link sets out for the castle to meet Zelda, the princess of Hyrule, who tells him of the ancient treasure of the land. The Triforce, that which has the power to grant the one who touches it the world. She tells you that you must protect it from Ganondorf at all cost. After you collect the remaining two Spiritual Stones, one from the Gorons of Death Mountain and one from the Zora race in their underwater domain, you return to the palace only to find that Ganondorf's attack has begun, and Zelda has fled the castle with her attendant.

Using the stones, you open the door of time and are transported seven years into the future when Ganondorf's reign has turned the world into a festering tomb of evil. Only by awakening the Sages that await in the scattered temples of Hyrule can you hope to contain him and heal the world.

You travel throughout the land, seeing familiar faces along the way, purging the temples of the evils that block the call to the Chamber of Sages, and returing the land to what it once was.

Once all of the Sages have been awakened, Link returns to the Temple of Time where the rest of the story is revealed, as is Shiek's true identity as Princess Zelda. Zelda grants you the light arrows which staunch the darkness that has chased away the light of Hyrule. Zelda is then teleported to Ganondorf's castle and the challenge is offered; brave the keep to save the damsel. The Sages bind thier powers together and make a bridge that leads to Ganondorf's fortress.

Once the trials are passed, the way to the evil king is open. After a grueling battle and Zelda is freed, you are given three minutes to escape while the stone walls collapse around you. Upon exit, Ganondorf rises from the remains of his "impeneterable" castle and is consumed by his own evil. He becomes the monster Ganon, and the final battle ensues.

After finishing off the former king, the Sages seal Ganon in the Sacred Realm and peace is restored to Hyrule. Zelda returns Link to his time and, with their task complete, Navi returns to the forest. Link however, retuns to Zelda's side, and the rest is up to your imagination. Criers play at your own risk, as the end will choke you up.

Graphics
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Wow. How else could it be put?. Yea, Majora's Mask was a tad crisper but for 1997 this was the pinicle of art given the technology they had to work with. The character models (ignoring some sharp corners in the nose and ear areas) are amazing and were brought to life with good facial expression, along with some superb and fluid animation that gave them a great sense of free movement. The landscape is beautifly crafted (again, ignoring some sharp edges) and really gives the player a sense of exploration when faced with the vastness of Hyrule Field, or the complexity of the many temples and dungeons. Both the characters and thier world have great color and depth, almost to the point of A Link to the Past on the SNES, and are pushed even further with the lighting effects to create the realistic shadows and highlights that would be perfected in Majora's Mask.

Sound
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This was the first game I ever had where I wanted to enjoy the music outside of gameplay, learning how to play the ocarina songs on my guitar and nowadays having a few on my iPod. The tunes are amazing, from the quirky ocarina notes that endlessly loop in the Lost Wood to the eerie tones of the Shadow Temple. The music in any game I believe has the power to suck you in completely to the experience, and this one definately delivers that. From the second you begin the game with the thunder booming and string section wailing as the Deku Tree sends Navi to you, to the end with the string section wailing a much lighter tune as Link accends the stairs to Zelda's side, you can't help but be drawn in. Each area has it's own specialized track to create a unique atmosphere which you can't help but love as it keeps things from getting stale, and your brain from exploding from a 20 second looping MIDI track that many older games cling to and run from start to finish. My favourite bits of music have to be the fully orchestrated songs that serve as warps to the game's temples, they're beautiful and fit the area they send you to perfectly.

Gameplay
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This game handles wonderfully on a system notorious for bad handling, which alone should garner some praise. It makes use of all of the main buttons and does so in a manner which allows for some comfort which is unhead of on the N64 controller. You can run, roll, and dodge enemies from the get go with little practise and the best part is that Link will actually do these things when and where you tell him. He turns on a more of a quarter than a dime while still maintaining the fluid animation I grovelled over earlier. The auto-targeting is intuitive and allows you to choose and change targets with ease and makes the already awsome free roaming combat a lot easier, especially when using the ranged weapons. It also allows you to pull off the jump slash move which is more powerful than your standard swing, while also getting you out of the way of a cold death in the form of whatever you may be fighting's attack. The only thing I could complain about is the difficulty of riding Epona while also attempting to work the bow that are somehow trying to share a control scheme (and I REALLY wanted that extra bottle...).

Replayability
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There's really no REASON to play the game again, as the plot is linear and there's no unlockables after the game's done but really, how could you not? This is one of those games where you'll get an urge to go back and play it every once in a while, even if its just for a few minutes (or so you tell yourself) and then end up spending a week doing nothing but. It's definately better than 90% of the stuff one the N64 so unless you have a really good 10% game on the sidelines patiently waiting for thier turn you'l end up drifting back towards it sooner or later.

Fun Factor
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So much. Sooooooo much fun. Hard at times yes, and frustrating as well, but still undeniably fun. Even if you dont bother progressing, you can go blow all your hard earned rupees at the mini-games, or go fishing, or just wait until the sun goes down and hack away at some zombies. Whatever you choose to do, you'l have a good time doing it.



Wild Arms 3 -- The Last Great Western

Wild Arms 3 is a western style turn based RPG set in Filgaia, an alternate world that, due to a war between the demons and the demi-humans, has been reduced to a barren wasteland. People who wish to find thier fortune amongst the dunes (referred to as Drifters), venture out and make money where and when they can, be it eradicating monsters or plundering the local ruins. The game focuses on four such drifters as thier adventure takes them down a long road of bitter truths regarding thier pasts and eventually pits them against a demon that plans on reducing the planet to a memoryless state.

Graphics
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The graphics in this game are a massive step up from the first two and the artwork very nicely accommodates the feel of the game. That being said, some of the monsters are beautifully crafted and colorful to boot. This makes up for the slightly static environment in most areas (although some are VERY detailed). The cutscenes in the game flow very smoothly and although aren't vocalized, usually don't contain THAT much reading (as RPGs go). Another things that stands out in the game are the Guardian Summon attacks which are the closest thing that comes to HD. The color and lighting effects go beyond the boundaries of the franchise and are a nice addition to the massive damage inflicted.

Sound
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My favourite part of this entire series is the music. No fancy pants orchestra required, just acoustic guitar and a flute or trumpet thrown in here and there to spice things up. As mentioned above, there aren't any character voices in the game but I feel that they would just get in the way of enjoying the melody of tunes (besides, if you don't like reading cutscenes the RPGs probably aren't for you anyways right?). Again, a big step up from the previous titles, the music is not to be missed.

Gameplay
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I wouldn't change a thing about this game in terms of playability. It handles great while running around the map, allowing you to run and slide around corners pretty precisely, but the in-battle section is where this one really shines. The pace and execution of the battles are impeccable, being quick enough that you won't be bored while the turns play out, but slow enough so that you can take your time and realize what has to happen next to assure victory. The in-battle menu is easy to follow, with a help bar across the top of the screen in case you get confused. The puzzles in the game range from fairly obvious to very challenging, some of which may confuse and frustrate those new to the genre. The tool system (items used by each character to solve said puzzles) makes the game fun while just wandering through dungeons and adds a new level of creativity to how certain things can be attained.

Re-playability
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I take it back. This is my favourite part of this game, because if you love it as much as I do, this lets you show that. In the game are very special (and hard to acquire) items called EX-File Keys. There are 15 total and by earning a mere 2 of them, you can start a new game with your existing level and money after the end. This allows you to get stronger and stronger in order to face the extremely tough hidden bosses which would be near impossible to beat on the first playthrough. Take it from me, it takes a while to get old. I've beaten the game close to 12 times on one progress and have attained level 100 with all four people (you'll need to be 75+ to stand a chance against some of the special bosses). On top of all that, you probably won't understand the story 100% the first go anyway so this gives you a chance to see it from the beginning knowing what you would from beating it.

Fun Factor
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Needless to say, this game is a lot of fun once you get into it. It's a little slow within the first few hours, but really picks up once the story starts to unfold. It's a must play for any RPG fan.



Grandia 2 -- Hooray For Mediocredy!

The story of the game is quite in-depth and in some parts you really need to pay attention to figure out whats going on but it is worth it. Similar to, well, every other RPG out there, theres a hero, bad guys, and a BIG bad guy that bosses um around. You as the hero are destined to hurt said baddies and rejoice with the peasants. The plot centers around a religion and its counter religion which your hero seems to think are both bull. The only thing (although it's a big thing) is that the story kinda comes apart at the end....like really apart. A very anti-climatic ending follows the final boss, leaving you feeling like the game has just spit on you.

Graphics
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Mediocre. Grandia has never been known for it's stunning visuals but the character models in this one are lack-lustre at best. Not only are the graphics not very good but the game seems to be having trouble rendering then anyways. It's a good thing that your character is fast because you lag A LOT and you will constantly find yourself going at about half speed just so the game can keep up. The game also has some texture issues while in battle, meaning that from time to time some of your characters will have reverted back to their polygonal state and have no color whatsoever.


Sound
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Again...meh. The sound and music are ok and fit the mood every now and then but it's nothing to go nuts over. Some of the cutscenes have poor voice acting and then some have none, and even when there are voice, you really can't feel it. They never really sound like they're in the situation (ie: quite calm dialogue in crisis) and it tends to come off a little fake.


Gameplay
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The only real saving grace of this game is it's battle and growth systems. The battle system is based on a time bar at the bottom with portraits of all your characters and whatever you may be facing. They all move at once and when the portrait gets to a certain point, it can go. Certain factors effect the speed of the portraits, and of the moves you execute from them. The growth system is by far the best part of the game. At the end of each battle you get EXP to level up normally, but you also get separate points to level up your skills and magic. So if you want one uber strong character, go for it, if not, even um out. This option really adds a lot of flexibility and replayability to an otherwise linear game. Then there one thing that I didn't count on after playing Grandia 3, which was the difficulty. This has to be the easiest RPG I've ever played in my life. During the entire game I died TWICE, both to the same guy who turns out to be like the hardest guy in the game and the last boss also hit me TWICE, I'm dead serious. That however makes this a good beginners RPG. I would recommend this game for anyone looking to get into the genre without overdoing it on the first game.


Replayability
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Not much. Once the story is revealed there isn't much drive in this one. You can try and play through again allocating your points differently but it really wont make that much of a difference as you get so many points that by the end everythings maxed out anyway. This ones definately a once playthrough.


Fun Factor
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I had a good time playing this game. The difficulty could have been adjusted and it could have been a little more eye catching but other than that it was fun. The only thing that I HATED was the lag. The lag even in simple towns was frustrating beyond belief and it even lagged through cutscenes which I didn't even know was possible since it's a pre-determined event. If you don't mind that, you could stand to have some fun with Grandia 2.



Diablo 2 -- Click, Click, Click...

A genre-defining hack and slash deathfest that has kept me going long into many nights, Diablo 2 evolves and overshadows its dungeon-crawling predecessor. The game stars you, the new hero who thinks their gonna slay the many, many (many) beasts and bring happiness to everybody…minus the beasts. You start off in the rogue encampment with a rabble of people who seem to know much more than you of the dangers that lay ahead and none of whom seem to want to do anything about it. So it's up to you, the seemingly much more powerful level 1, to dispatch Diablo's minions and finally the keeper of the Chaos Sanctuary. After the grassy fields of the chapter 1 are stained with the blood of the fallen, you journey through a dessert, the Kurast jungle, and finally Hell itself. The expansion pack takes you to the snowy mountain aside the town of Harrogath, and into the depths of the mountain to the Worldstone Keep, where Baal, Diablo's brother, seeks to destroy the Worldstone. Breaking the Worldstone would allow the depths of Hell and its creatures to spill forth into Earth.

I'll admit, the story in Diablo 2 is thin, and really who cares? The story isn't the reason why you play this game. To tell the truth, I skipped all the cutscenes and half the dialogue. If you play D2 you play because you enjoy the sight of legions of monsters getting incinerated at the click of a button or the sound of your axe slicing through the bones of the undead. The game is about killing and arranging all the stuff you pick up in the limited space provided, so if you're a Tetris fan who always thought the blocks would look better covered in blood and guts then you're in for a treat.


Graphics
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For it's time, the graphics in D2 are great, and the expansion pack only helps with the 5th chapter scenery and the 800x600 resolution. The environments get gradually better as the game goes on, ranging from semi-bland grassy area to grimy black land accented by blazing (and most of the time blinding) red/orange lava in Hell. The characters are all unique, although they all start to look similar once the armour goes on them. The stronger armour makes your character look better, but that being said each armour doesn't have a distinct look, which is a little disappointing given the pictorial representation of each item in your inventory. All the items look so much better before you put them on, which is a let down when a stock weapon has curves, jewels, or spikes once you get to the equip screen. The only character who's skills look really good in my opinion are the sorceresses, because hers show off the best visual aspects the game has to offer, which are the flame and lightning effects. The fire in D2 is quite realistic, but the lightning is beautiful. It streaks across the screen like a drunk sports fan and lights the area it travels to, revealing enemies who aren't struck by it's fury. The monsters in the game are creative (especially in the later chapters) but get repetitive, as there are only a few types that just get rendered in different colours to distinguish them from their weaker counterparts. What I really enjoyed (while not panicking from having to face them) were the bosses. Each chapter has a boss that goes with its environment (except for the third which is kind of random), and each has a variety of attacks that will a) impress you as they are different from anything you've seen in game and b) dig you an early grave, but lets save overpowered boss attacks for the gameplay section.


Sound
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The sound in D2 is forgettable, to the point that I have the sound turned off and my iTunes on in the background. But if you are going to listen to it, you are treated to a lot of death noises and monologues from your character which don't really tell you anything you didn't know already. Likewise, the skill sound effects are unimpressive. The only one I really liked is the Barbarians Whirlwind, which sounded like Crash Bandicoot when he spins, so it brought back some nostalgia for me. The only thing I would advise turning the sound on for is to hear Cain's Sean Connery impression, which after one or two sentences you realise is (unfortunately) his actual voice.


Gameplay
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Gameplay in D2 consists of killing, picking up stuff from the recently deceased, and dropping things to make room for more stuff. Almost any kill will net you a drop, most of which is equipment. This prompts the question, "If the zombie I just sliced in two had a plate armour, why wasn't he wearing it? It may have prevented the whole sliced in two thing…" The space they give you to manage all of this stuff is VERY limited, and you will constantly find yourself with no space left and in dire need to return to town while in the thick of combat. As you can imagine, this gets annoying within the first hour and doesn't stop throughout the rest of the game. You shouldn't however let that stop you, as the good outweighs that bad. The killing part of the game can be executed quite easily, or excruciatingly bad depending on how you build your character. Each character has their own set of skills; some good, some not so good, and some that to this day have never really been known to have a use. As much as you can mess your character up by using the wrong skills (and this happens easily), your character can be made or broken by their equipment (which is why the aforementioned space issue is such a problem; how do you find better equipment if you can't pick anything up?).

Controlling your character is easy. Point. Click. Done. If you don't like to click or have a faulty mouse then stay far away from this game as it will cause nightmares. You click to do EVERYTHING. Move, attack, pick up, drop, buy, and sell, all controlled by the little gauntlet that hovers over you at all times. The only thing not mouse controlled are the potions (which can be mouse controlled but when you're dying and in desperate need to either run or kill the disgruntled lackey attacking you then it's rarely an option). That's another thing to be wary of, make friends with the potion merchant. You will go through potions like you've just bought a years supply and they expire tomorrow.

One thing I really don't like about the game and something that I believe takes away from its accessibility is its difficulty curve. It starts off a few steps short of dull with minimal resistance from what you'd prefer dead and for the first couple hours inclines nicely. The enemies get a little harder and start to come in bigger groups and all the while you've been running around and eating your spinach so now you're flying right through it. Then you hit a brick wall of enemies that are harder than the mini bosses you've been dealing with and are coming at you in swarms. This would have been fine if there had been any middle ground at all to speak of but there isn't. One minute you're enjoying the bloody gurgles of your most recent kill and the next you're fleeing for your life from the exact same thing you just killed only in blue instead of brown. If you do manage to make it past that wall and go on to the nightmare difficulty then you are faced with another, which sports a few more bricks and a lot more cement. This is however still do able, and with enough senseless violence you can overcome. Unfortunately, once you beat the game on nightmare and start over on hell, the wall becomes a mountain and the difficulty curve pitches vertical.


Re-Playability
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High. You can play this game a lot and still only scratch the surface. Each character can be built multiple ways and because the map is randomly generated each play is unique. Not only that, but the loot you get each time is going to be different, and will allow you to evolve your strategy differently. This game's life is as long as your mouse cares to last before right click becomes a 50/50 deal and left click is a pipedream.


Fun Factor
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This game is a lot of fun. There's multiple ways to ruin your foes' day and each one entertaining, even when performed a million times. If you're looking for something to play for a half hour or something to blow your weekend on, this game has a good time to offer.



PHEW, that was a lot of copy-paste on my part. The things I do for you. New game reviews coming in May!!!

Terminator Salvation – Why won’t you diiiieeee!?

Five days and three reviews, yes I’ll be getting some rest sometime before the weekend, but luckily my sleep schedule was unaltered by Terminator Salvation because I finished it in 5 hours. Before I start off I’d like to formally apologise to Legendary for accusing it of being dank, gritty, brown and short because clearly I didn’t know the definition of any of those terms before playing TS. I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised playing this game, as I heard it was absolutely terrible. Keep in mind that the game is not what I’d call “good”, but there were moments of notable enjoyment that I won’t overlook simply to eviscerate it. And besides, even if you think the game is total crap and not worth your time, 5 hours for a platinum trophy is tough to beat. Yes that’s right, play through the game on hard and you automatically get 9 bronze, 2 gold and the platinum trophy, the first obtained within a few minutes. And really, there’s no reason not to play on hard, because the game isn’t very difficult. However, it is infuriatingly cheap sometimes, causing you to replay the same sections repeatedly, each time having to endure the menacing red eyes of the loading screen for longer than anyone should have to wait in order to be shot and killed yet again. Try to remember though as you read this that I played it the first time on hard, so some of my time with said loading screen may have been avoided on an easier setting while getting my bearings.

The game stars you, being played quite well by John Connor, leader of the resistance as he simultaneously battles robots called Terminators who have taken over the world post judgement day. Things don’t start off very well, with John and company getting their asses handed to them by some very large machines. People die, all air support is blown to smithereens, and the team consensus is to hightail it back to base. Once you get to the extraction point, somebody in no mans land radios the group to ask if they might journey into the robot HQ to save them. John being a big grizzled softie insists that they go on the rescue/suicide mission, and when his superiors deny him help, opts to go it alone. The only woman in the group, who I think just has her eye on the queen seat of the resistance throne room, tells John that she can’t possibly let him go die by himself, so she tags along. Along the way you meet some more survivors who are just trying to leave peacefully among the remorseless metal overlords and whom are probably better off with the union but still manage to complain about it. Fortunately for you though your party never feels bogged down because the amount of people you meet is balanced nicely by the amount of people that are mercilessly killed. Every time you get a new companion you’d better take a good long look at your existing friends, as someone will soon no longer be with us. Eventually you make it to the stronghold and the ending ensues, one that I must say was refreshing after watching Legendary’s yesterday.

Graphically, this game varies, but even the lower end of the spectrum is quite impressive. The opening cinematic is stunning, featuring a quality that I’ve only come to expect from the CG in movies, and the in game character models are great. The only downside is that they decided to use these character models to act out the cutscenes instead of making more high definition ones, and even more unfortunately is that they seem to develop stage fright when the camera locks on them and stiffen up. All of the fluid, human-like movement that occurs in game goes out the window and we’re left with characters awkwardly staring at each other while the dialog unfolds and struggles to keep in sync with everybody’s mouth movement. But like I said, there are very few instance of this, given that there aren’t too many cutscenes in the entire game, and the rest looks really good. Humans look like humans, robots look like robots, except for the type of robot that’s supposed to look like a human but I’ll let that slide. Seemingly the price the robots paid for being practically invincible to all ammunition known to man is a slight graphical downgrade from those futilely trying to take them down. They don’t really have much texture and in most locals their colour makes them blend in with their surroundings, making them seem quite flat compared to your character. This mostly applies to the endoskeletons, whose stiff walking animation just does more to shallow them out. I feel odd pointing out that the robots aren’t “lifelike” because that’s probably the point, but there’s a limit, the way they walk it looks as if they should be falling over, like they don’t shift their weight properly. Come to think about it, this is probably a good thing because if they moved any faster than they would be significantly harder to destroy. The only reason I killed most of them was because they were either feebly attempting to get around several obstacles, or had abandoned movement all together, instead hoping that their latest hardware patch had included some kind of teleportation device. The spider-like robots on the other hand have a touch more shiny depth and have much better movement, scuttling around the wastes eagerly scanning for something to machinegun into nothingness, and quite often that something was my slow ass. Lastly there are the “wasps”, which are small air assault drones that fly as if physics actually exist. Shooting these down is the most fun that you’ll have in the game based solely on the spectacle. When they die they’ll either jettison all of their main flight equipment mid-air and plummet to the ground, or they’ll spin around and take out another wasp or two before crashing into a nearby wall (and there is never NOT a nearby wall).

A gripe I have to touch on before moving on to the gameplay is the lack of variety, and what is should have meant for the graphics. There are four main enemies in the game, one just being a version of the endoskeleton only with skin. That being said, there’s no excuse why the time wasn’t put in to make the graphics and movement on these 4 characters absolutely perfect, especially seeing as you spend nearly the entire game encountering one or more of them. They can’t even claim to have been working on the other enemies, which I guess I would classify as bosses, since they come up rarely if not only once. It’s a short list, consisting of the Hunter Killers, the Harvester, the rail cars, and the motorcycles. It’s funny [sad] how this game can be accused of almost every flaw I had with Legendary, to a higher degree even, and I still had a much better time with Terminator. Now we have the almighty question of how entertaining getting from destroyed point A to repeatedly exploded point B is. The gameplay of Terminator Salvation is very repetitive. There are two types of action: run, gun and hide A.S.A.P. bullet-fest, and man the turrents while we run for our lives…fest.

The former can be summed up as very short jaunts through the rubble-laden streets that serve only to connect you from one extremely cover based firefight to another. It almost reminds me of Gears of War, but somehow being even more reliant on you getting your ass behind something that can soak up bullets. Cover is so important simply because of how fast your health drops off. Even the wasps, as the buzz around the battlefield accidentally bumping into each other, can knock off half of your health if you so much as pop your head up. Those are the weakest enemies as well, the spider-bots and the endoskeletons both have machine guns which can turn you from John Connor, full health hero of the world and saviour of mankind, into John Connor, grizzled meat shield, in a matter of seconds. Then there are the Hunter Killers who have these kinds of plasma cannons that can topple buildings, but are more frequently aimed at your face instead of just bringing the roof down on you. Still, the worst has to be the endoskeletons, simply because they aren’t concerned with playing fairly. Fed up with emptying their backpack of ammo into the wall, they will walk themselves slowly over to where you are crouched down behind cover, blind-firing an endless stream of bullets into their unimpressed frame which can take about 150 shots from the stronger machinegun, only to smack you upside the head with their guns, instantly killing you. And you can’t even attempt to run away, as the second you try, they will suddenly remember where the trigger is and fill you full of lead. Another thing you have to get used to is getting behind the spider-bots, as they can only be hurt from behind, and doing so while maintaining cover is often still dangerous. You can stun them for a fraction of a second by hitting their pixel-wide scanner on the front, but it serves little purpose. The only thing that seems to be on your side is John’s metabolism, allowing him to heal his body when he’s not under too much stress. Just as long as you’re not getting shot at, your health regenerates, and very quickly. This serves as not only an indicator as to when the fight is over, but helps immensely to get you ready for the next wave of machines, waiting just over the hill.

The later of the two gameplay types is a test in patience and tenacity as you die over and over again, each time learning a little more of the enemies movement pattern so you can kill them before they you. You will play these vehicle sections more than anything, simply because there’s no way to hide. You are getting shot at, and the thing shooting at you has quite a bit of health, meaning if you didn’t start shooting the second you saw them then your jeep is going to be a block of Swiss cheese on wheels by the time they blow up. Thankfully though, each section has at least one checkpoint, which upon death will not only start you off there, but will also refill your health, only for you to die again anyway. There really is little hope of getting through them one the first go. This being mostly due to the fact that the guns are super strong, but have the accuracy of a spread shotgun at 1000 yards. IF you hit something, it will be close to dead, still meaning you have to hit it again before it’ll actually go down, and even then, there’s probably six more behind it. The guns also have a little meter that goes up as you fire and down as you stop. This represents how hot the gun is, and will stall if the gun reaches all the way to the top and overheats. This is effectively a death sentence, meaning you can’t just hold down the fire button and sweep across the screen as I was inclined to do on my first attempt. All this makes for a very broken section of the level that pops up more frequently than I’d have liked it to.

The weapons in the runny gunny hidey section are varied, each with their own purposes. There’s the assault rifle for when you’re out of bullets with everything else as it’s the most common thing to find ammunition for, it’s the weapon you start with and is pretty weak, and then there is the machinegun, which can hold significantly more bullets per clip and does much more damage. Both of these are mainly for taking down the wasps and the backs of the spider-bots. There is also an all purpose shotgun which is usually a one hit kill for the wasps, and can chip away at the health of the others. It is however a one bullet per button press weapon, making it less practical for taking down heavier machines. For the spiders, skeletons and Hunter Killers, there are grenade launchers which do moderate damage, and rocket launchers which do heavy damage, although ammunition for both is scarce, the grenade launcher not even appearing until the 7th chapter of 9. Unfortunately, you can only carry two weapons at a time, so choose wisely. Should you take the rocket launcher with 3 shots just in case there’s a bunch of endos, or keep your machinegun and pray for a swarm of light hearted target practice wasps? You can also carry grenades and pipe bombs, which are better than any weapon and are found almost everywhere. Challenge terminated.

There isn’t much else to say about the game, it’s so short that there wasn’t any room for additional content. The verdict? Rent it, milk it for trophies and return it, only buying it if you plan on charging people to borrow. It’s not the tragedy that I heard it was, and for that it earned some points in my eyes, but the price tag is certainly not worth the moderate satisfaction and time you’ll spend on it. A good effort, but a few more levels and two, maybe three more enemies would have been appreciated. On a side note I still haven’t gotten back to Bioshock.

-AtomicPineapple

Legendary – The worst thing to happen to mythical creatures since sparkling vampires.

On Friday I went out for a walk with my girlfriend and ended up renting Legendary, as being fresh off of my Disgaea 3 conquest, I needed something with a little more movement and I figured why not get a simple action game. There was a deal on, so I got Bioshock as well and holy crap, am I happy I did, because after playing Legendary for about 8 hours not only had I had enough of the game, but I’d also beaten it. Unfortunately, the game’s length did nothing to keep it from wearing out it’s welcome a touch prematurely.

To my dismay when I got home, Legendary was not an action game, but another FPS, not that you could tell from the back of the box (I suppose the guy on the front with the gun should’ve tipped me off, but lots of action games have them so I just went with it). But anyway, I began, not knowing what to expect and trying to keep an open mind even as the opening cutscene skipped around like a CD cleaned with steel wool. Afterwards, I discovered that the dank aesthetic of the previous cinematic seizure was to be with me for the whole experience, so I settled in for the long haul and here I am, ready to sink my teeth into the jugular of this legendary mess.

Lets start off on what got to me the most, the game’s individuality and creativity, or more accurately, the lack thereof. The overall design is bland and extremely shallow, utilising many shades of brown, grey and browny greyish. Gritty textures blanket the cramped environments, except whenever you’re inside a building, in which the rocks and mud are replaced by a dirty, shiny metallic glint. Lighting effects are poor at the best of times, save for a few moments where the programmers were actually awake, and only flatten the already dull presentation. That being said, there were moments when the game’s atmosphere got so intense that I forgot what I was playing and started to enjoy myself, only to be yanked back into reality seconds later as I turned the corner to find another bleak attempt at a setting. These mere moments (ironically the most enjoyable part of the game) are something that really annoyed me, because it showed what the entire game could’ve been if the effort had been put forth. I feel very conflicted ripping this game apart because I know that there is potential here, but it’s crippled by inconsistency, the mood shifting from wow back to irritated almost instantly.

The levels larger than the sewers or the several underground paths the game makes you traverse are littered with so much debris that it turns what should be some room for you to manoeuvre around into yet another tight corridor. These are usually far worse than the tunnels because at least in the tunnels, you know you’re trapped. Out in the “open”, the crap strewn about is always low to the ground, allowing you to see some free space, but never allowing you to access it because of your insanely short jump height. Also bland and repetitive are the enemies, having little by way of texture and even less in colour. More dull, flat shades of grey and brown to endlessly massacre, only highlighted by splotches of red and blue once the bullets do their thing. And to make matters worse, the selection of uninspired enemies is shorter than the aforementioned bunny hops. There are 12 types of enemies in the game, and that’s if you’re lenient. One is just a sac that spawns a different enemy, 2 are just harder versions of weaker enemies, and one is just a tentacle that occasionally comes out of nowhere and pretty much instantly kills you. So if you want to be picky, there’s actually only 8 different enemies in the entire game, and that still includes the only boss!

Now that I think about it, the non-existent colour palette is the least of Legendary’s problems, because the game could look like a clown college reject and it’d still be an artistic atrocity. Simply put, the graphics are not next gen. Legendary might (barely) make a list of PS2 games with good graphics, but off the top of my head I can think of several last generation games that look much better. The first thing that comes to mind is Black, which I thought about several times as I plodded on through another legendary sewer. Black was absolutely stunning. It was shiny, had great character models, was quite colourful even for a game with a lot of dark areas, and was still able to throw in a few levels full of grit. On top of that, I’ve yet to see a game with better explosions, which it handed out frequently with a smile. Even something like God of War 2, which isn’t supposed to have ultra realistic people, comes off feeling more human than the embarrassing characters of Legendary. Yes, Kratos, god of war, body and mind comparable to that of a brick shithouse, is more human than the guy from Legendary (I can’t even remember his name, and I just turned the game off).The weaponry, while having some nice gun designs, also leaves much to be desired being as bland as the scenery. You can’t imagine my distaste as the game still chugged under the graphics’ minimal weight.

All this and I haven’t even touched the story or gameplay, which are about as appealing as the already trampled over graphical fortitude. The game is about a guy, still can’t recall the name, who is tricked into opening Pandora’s box and receives a mark on his arm for doing so. When the box was opened, mythical creatures were released into the world and begin to wreak havoc. The guy who sent the main character to open it wants to use the box to control the monsters for some unexplained reason, presumably for world domination or another cliché. Once you get to the end the story attempts to wrap up, but stumbles into something that feels nothing like closure. The story is bad as is to be expected in a game that finishes before really getting started, but pacing is not the only issue. It’s boring, predictable, and I’m quite sure half-assed. I had no idea why I was in each level because I just couldn’t be bothered, you never feel drawn into it and the execution is poor throughout. And yes, I know I wrote like 3 paragraphs on how pissed I was that it’s all brown and 3 sentences on the plot but what do you expect given what I’m working with? I’m sure if I was reviewing a book with no pictures than I have significantly less thoughts on the palette and much more in terms of story, but as it stands Legendary is about as deep as my admiration for it.

And now the gameplay, oh dear god the gamepley. Legendary is not a fun game, and the moments that it goes from crap to halfway decent are not worth the uphill battle. The only things legendary does right are the things that can be said about most shooters, such as a few strips where you can either run in guns blazing or hang back and snipe everyone, and the fact that when you kill someone, the animation of them falling over is quite impressive, all feeling very real. This of course can only be said of the human enemies, since the monsters don’t take cover, and more often than not will unsatisfyingly blow up when you kill them. Come to think about it, I would have enjoyed the game much more if all of the monsters had been taken out, because I only ever enjoyed fighting the humans. This is probably due to the fact that the opposing army seems to have a limit to how many soldiers they can afford to waste on you, which leads us into a much more spiteful list of things that the game does wrong.

Yes, probably the worst thing about the game is that unless the goal is to clear out the room of enemies, than all the monster types will endlessly re-spawn, which should be illegal. Even while attempting the jumping “puzzle” in the second stage, you will have the same werewolf chewing on your ass every time you fall down, and then again once you make it back up. Just to make getting around with a room full of enemies that will never stop coming at you even more irritating, anything bigger than the 1 foot tall fairies will inevitably gang up on you and force you into a corner, rendering you unable to move as they rip you apart. And just to make matters worse, when anything with claws attacks you, for example every friggin’ werewolf in the game, you get big red claw marks across your screen, which stack with each attack by each enemy. This will effectively blind you, as you are made mincemeat out of by three or four identical baddies, again. And mincemeat you shall become, because if you aren’t facing the very fragile fairies, the exploding bugs or the squishy soft humans then you will most likely have to empty an entire clip into even a single unit of the endless horde of werewolves before it dies. Seriously, I've never shot at anything so much in my entire life and felt like it’d done absolutely nothing, and as you progress your ammo becomes less and less effectual. The worst instance is when facing a minotaur, which can take about 50 shotgun shells to the face before going down, and that’s if you’ve been hurling molotov cocktails at it during your reloading time. The only thing they did to try and remedy this was to make ammo slightly more obtainable than the inevitable rage that follows having to restart a section for the 8th time after werewolf clone number 458 chews your face off. Throughout the whole game I think I ran out of ammo 3 times, and that’s while mostly using the shotgun. The ground is littered with big glowing crates of ammo that don’t disappear until all the ammo it has to offer is gone, even in the most obscure places. With so much live ammunition lying around the city in museums and the sewer system, it seems the city has bigger problems than a few little monsters running amuck.

The only other gameplay mechanic I have any issue with (given how it is the only other mechanic in the game) is your health and the restoration of. You have a tiny little health meter, which doesn’t stand up well even to the 1-foot fairy attacks, and healing is a pain. It seems that the mark received by opening Pandora’s box has the ability to absorb what I can only assume are the monsters’ souls. You do this slooooowly. You can then use the soul energy to heal yourself a little bit, also done at a speed with just as many o’s. By the time you do get your health bar up to a liveable level, you’ve either lost health equivalent to what you restored, or are more mercifully dead. Because of this system, healing while fighting humans is impossible, as only monsters drop soul energy. As you can probably imagine, this leads to some complications. If there had been health packs laying around instead of this, I feel as if I would have had a much better time with Legendary, as you can quite easily be doing very well, and suddenly be dead before you know what’s gone on.

The verdict? Pass. Don’t rent it and for god sakes don’t buy it. Its playability is minimal, and a second run through is a definite no. I didn’t enjoy Legendary, and unless barely passable games are your forte, I doubt you would either. The only positive thing that came out of the experience is this review, and the knowledge that I can now play Bioshock instead.

-AtomicPineapple, August 24, 2009

Disgaea 3 – Protecting the Netherworld, one square at a time.

My second favourite game in the series, Disgaea 3 stands out amongst its crowd. In a genre filled with games that are in essence identical, the Disgaea series would still be great even if it’s only redeeming quality was how different it is. What belongs in a fantasy tactical RPG? Ghosts? Goblins? Machete wielding, undead peg-legged penguins that explode when you throw them? Disgaea 3 has two of them and I’ve got to say, after 100+ hours playing the game, I’ve yet to see a goblin.

Thankfully though, difference is not the games only card. It features solid game play with a variety of in-depth mechanics, and has a charm and sense of humour that will pleasantly catch you off guard if recent games have left you expecting a super serious plot. The story goes as follows, Mao, the son of the overlord who is also dean of the Netherworld academy, begins his first year at school. I know, the plot sounds like various manga series with the high school for demons angle, which put me off at first too, but I promise it gets better. While attending the academy, Mao wishes to become stronger than his father so that he may one day defeat him, in retribution for stepping on his video games after he’d put four million hours into them (slightly less than you’ll have to play Disgaea 3 before you’ve unlocked everything). Okay, I know that isn’t really what you’d call “better” but it gets more in depth as you progress and I don’t want to give anything away. Besides, the game’s charm lies outside of the main story, manifesting itself in the quirky dialog in between the soap opera moments where something big is revealed and everyone puts on their shocked face as if they’d just heard the requirements for some of the trophies. One thing I can give the story, is that they looked back at Disgaea 1 and like it, found much (and I mean much) better ways of connecting the plot to the plot battles, giving you a reason to fight. This may seem a little confusing but if you played Disgaea 2, you know what I mean. 90% of the Disgaea 2 cutscenes played out as plot --> light-hearted joke --> plot --> sexual reference from the frog --> plot --> rustling in the bushes OMFG MONSTERS!!! I guess we better fight them. Think almost the complete opposite of that and you have the fluidity of Disgaea 3.

After hearing that the game has enough witty banter to excuse the overall premise then you’d probably think that its some kind of cinematic masterpiece in which to convey it all, in which case you’d probably be horribly disappointed. The game’s story is driven by fairly lack-lustre cutscenes is which a bunch of still character images are pasted to a background pertaining to the current location, and change when the characters are now screaming and therefore shouldn’t be smiling anymore. There are some instances of sprite animation, but it’s meagre, it’s mostly just the bad guy walks over to your party and the still images commence. This is apparently the standard for TRPGs because now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever played one that didn’t adopt this style, except for Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSX. Being from two consoles ago, it’s slightly embarrassing that everything lately is being shadowed by it. They are saved however by some truly masterful voiceovers which are really what bring the characters to life. While not as likeable as the original but much more so than that of the second, the characters have deep personalities which develop nicely as the story progresses. You get very attached to the main cast, and more than once I found myself trying to fly through the main plot battles just to see what happens next.

TRPGs are like FPSs in terms of consistency, if you’ve played one shooter, you can imagine it rendered in another colour and voila, a different game without having to shell out another 60 bucks. TRPGs are very much the same: you have a grid, a bunch of tiny players who vary in usefulness (perplexingly enough, based on how good their shoes are), and a group of monsters who have done their best to spread out so you don’t area kill them all at once. You move your characters (or character as I have found on many occasions to be more useful) from your base panel over to said baddies and start kickin’ ass one monster at a time using either swords, spears, axes, guns, bows, fists, staves, or monster weapons if you have monsters in your party. You can also use magic, which admittedly isn’t nearly as effective as Disgaea 2 and will have you running back to your warrior who can take more than a stern look’s worth of damage. Before long you get some very uplifting victory music and a variety of fairly un-useable items, along with some money. Simplistic concept, and yet often poorly executed. What makes Disgaea 3 so good is that it remedies the things that I have consistently found flawed in other titles.

Most importantly in my mind, is the speed. Oh my, there is a god, or at least a Santa Claus, because some higher power has granted my wish. NIS seemed to finally realise that these games tend to require you to grind levels ad nauseum so they decided to crank up the speed a bit. The battles flow quite quickly, but if you’re still too impatient or you are attempting to level anywhere past 100, then you can open up the options and change the speed to a level where the characters blur across the screen. Very few things invoke constant frustration for me that can be said about any game, but slow movement speed poisons the experience quicker than anything does. This being said, you can’t imagine the rejoicing as, while trying to adjust the picture so I could actually make out the numbers in my stats, I discovered that you can not only set the speed to “Blitz”, you can also forego all of the animations that come with special moves. Don’t get me wrong, the animations are pretty, colourful, and often pretty badass/hilarious but when you use specials much more often than you would use a regular attack, those animations can take up well over half the battle, and that includes time spent thinking of what to do. Needless to say, after seeing the same move done about a hundred times, it was time to switch them off. Put all of these things together and you can eventually make the aforementioned level grinding fights shorter than the “Battle Start” and “Battle End” messages that glide onto the screen like something out of a bad Powerpoint presentation. Seriously, the main stage you’ll use to level takes on average about six seconds to complete if you have the super awesome, surprisingly easy to obtain, game breaking special, “Big Bang”. It’s a fist technique, but worth the slight power downgrade from the sword you will most undoubted have equipped to anyone who can wield one.

Another thing that makes the game easily accessible, is the growth system that allows you to create a super hero from scratch in less than an hour if you already have a damage dealing behemoth and are just looking for some support. You are able to purchase skills and upgrade them buy spending mana, a kind of currency you get for defeating monsters, and can be transferred to other players by way of clubs (more on that later). Experience is also transferable in this way, although not in the same quantity. You can easily get a character to around level 300 without using them at all, but after that becomes impractical, as the required experience skyrockets as you progress. Characters can also be reincarnated, meaning that they can reset back to level 1, but retain a certain amount of their stats, allowing them to get much stronger. It’s difficult to explain how that aspect all works, and is really something you need to see for yourself, but bottom line is that the more you reincarnate, and the higher the level you are when you do, the more effective it is. By doing this often enough, you can create some truly frightening numbers. Levels go up to 9999, and individual stats can hit millions, my personal best being a 2.6 million attack stat.

When you aren’t endlessly doing the same level trying to create the uber characters needed for some of the challenges the game offers, you’ll most likely be delving into the item world. The item world is a series of randomly generated levels that exist inside each item. By going through them, the item levels up and becomes stronger, a little bit each floor. The number of floors an item has depends on the items rarity. Normal items have 30 floors, Rare items have 60, and Legendary items go all the way to 100, bosses occurring every 10 for each. This process is extremely simple, and can turn a legendary version of the first weapon into something stronger than that carried by the final boss. The strength of enemies in the item world are based on what the item is, and increase with each floor cleared, so powering up better equips is harder than the starter stuff but much more worth it. If the fight becomes too much for you to handle, as you can only return to the HQ to heal every 10 levels, you can exit using an item called the “Mr.Gency Exit” (sound it out to get the joke).

Also back from previous Disgaea titles, is the act of passing bills, and now clubs. In this case, you pass them by way of class votes (I still think the Dark Council from Disgaea 1 was a better idea, but what’re you going to do with a classroom theme?) which require you to get a majority rule based on the level of the voters. Weaker voters will contribute less to the cause, so getting on the stronger voters’ good side would help things along. This can be done by sending them bribes of things they like, each monster type having something they tend to go for (I believe the reapers prefer orbs for example). If all else fails, you can always opt to beat the crap out of anyone who disagreed. If you kill everyone who voted “nay”, then the bill is automatically passed, however this is often hard at the beginning of the game as the voters who are against you are generally a very high level, making it impractical until later on.

The last mechanic I’d like to touch on is throwing. As much as throwing things doesn’t seem to revolutionary, it’s one of those things where if you get the hang of it you can master the game far before you previously would have. Throwing enemies can either get them into position to be trounced by your main attackers, or, by throwing them onto other enemies, can increase their level, giving you the choice of several medium enemies or one hard one. You can also throw your allies, getting them to where they need to be, or out of the way of the super death move that a baddie would love to unleash upon your weaker and injured characters. And of course, there’s the Prinnies, those loveable penguins that are Disgaea’s answer to Moogles. These guys will explode when you throw them, dealing half of their HP as area damage and taking out any other explosives/penguins with them. Never has blowing up animals been so much fun.

Those crazy enough to attempt the post game will eventually unlock the X-Dimension, a much more difficult version of every story map. By beating these levels, you not only get some nice items, but you earn the right to face the Land of Carnage, a sick place where all of the maps are the same, featuring all of the same enemies in all the same locations. The difference besides that it’s run by the awesome penguins I mentioned before? All the enemies are harder. Not harder like I hope your healer knows the good spells, harder like I hope you filled out your will before you stepped off the space ship (apparently this place is faaaaaaar away). The Land of Carnage is the only place that you can obtain the best items in the game, so if you’re in this for the long haul, reaching here is your mid-term goal, and after that….I have no idea. There’s a bunch of trophies, which I do intend to eventually get, but as far as I’m concerned, by this point I’ve seen what the game has to offer.

As much as I don’t want to end on a sour note, I must address one thing that I don’t like about the game, and that is the constant reliance on randomness. Most of the game’s perks can only be unlocked randomly and really takes a lot of skill out of the game. I’d have a lot more of the elusive bronze trophies the game dangles above my head if it was just a matter of overcoming an obstacle instead of being able to overcome it, but having to sit and hope it comes along. It’s strange to find myself exploring the inner workings of a pack of gum, picking off level 6 monsters and thinking, “If only the borderline impossible enemies would randomly show up.” It makes getting to the Land of Carnage an even more impossible feat, as playing the X-Dimension levels require you to collect Illegal Tickets, which can only be obtained by either killing randomly occurring pirates, or randomly by going in randomly occurring portals on random floors of random items. It feels like the game doesn’t want to you get to the hard stuff, as if the programmers only finished about 4/5 of it and decided to try and keep you from coming across the unfinished bits.

The verdict? Rent it. I love this game, I don’t know why, but I do. You on the other hand may hate it, and I don’t see there being a lot of middle ground. So give it a try first and if you like it and plan to see it through, then I definitely recommend a buy, because if you don’t then the rental fees will amount to more than the price tag quickly. I’ve spent 130ish hours on the game, and have potentially many more hours to go to obtain some of the trophies which require obscene accomplishments such as dealing 10 billion damage in either a single move or to one enemy, I'm not sure which. I still prefer the original though, the story is better, the quirky humour is there without trying to be as the newer games were just trying to keep up with it’s predecessor, and overall I just had a better time with it. So if you like Disgaea 3 and have a PS2 kickin’ around, I wholehearted suggest picking up Disgaea, which you can get at about any EB now for 20 bucks.

-AtomicPineapple, August 23, 2009