Justin Last

Thor: God of Thunder

May 17, 2011

Thor: God of Thunder for the DS is exactly what you’re thinking: a movie tie-in aimed at young kids, whose devs didn’t try very hard because, even if the game only sells to one percent of the DS’ install base, SEGA will make their money back and then some. And basing a game, even a bad one, off of a summer blockbuster will ensure that grandmas all over the nation will buy it for the grandkids’ birthday and Christmas presents.

I really wish that pessimism didn’t pay off so often, but unless there’s a Tt Games or Telltale logo on it somewhere, licensed games just aren’t good. Thor: God of Thunder could and should have been a competent God of War-style action game or Zelda-style RPG. Instead it’s a boring run through five hours of the same enemies over and over with a limited combo system and graphics that, aside from bosses, look like they could be done on the GBA.

At the very least, Thor is not simply a retelling of the movie’s plot so those kids who receive will have a new narrative to play through. You take control of the titular Norse god as he protects Asgard from three types of enemies in a variety of colors. Single enemies are laughably easy to defeat, and groups don’t present much more challenge. Combos are easy to string together, and Thor has a decent amount of attack variety in melee, ranged, flying, and super moves. You won’t need all of them, but it’s nice that the option is there. Additionally, there is a small strategy element present in Thor’s equipping of runes to augment his abilities. You can only equip three at a time so you’ll have to choose runes based on your play style. It’s not a bad system at all, it’s just sitting in such a mediocre game that it suffers by association.

Where WayForward flexes its dev muscles a little bit is the boss battles. Bosses fill both DS screens and require a bit of strategy to beat. It’s nice to see something different than the same monsters over and over again, and finally utilizing the DS hardware is a great addition to the game. I wish more of the game took advantage of the platform, honestly. There’s room here for large vertical levels (Thor can fly after all), monster types that require more thought than “beat with hammer until dead” to defeat, and a more interesting setup than “monsters are marching on Asgard – are you a cool enough dude to protect the gods!?”

Thor: God of Thunder is rife with potential. Superhero games are not new regardless of whether their source material was recently given the movie treatment. Marvel’s take on Norse mythology should make for a great action game whether it be a traditional action platformer, something with RPG elements, or a flight-based shooter. Thor deserves better than this, and it’s a shame that SEGA and WayForward dropped the ball. If Disney could make a compelling Lion King game on the SNES, then SEGA should have been able to make a blockbuster out of Thor.

Pros: Interesting combat system full of combos and run combinations

Cons: Enemies are so easy to defeat that the combat system can’t shine

Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection

May 9, 2011

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last /

Square Enix has never stopped pumping out Final Fantasy games, but my personal favorite is Final Fantasy IV. Everybody has played this one by now – it was first available on the SNES, then the PSX, GBA, DS, and now the PSP. Why would you consider playing it again? Because the PSP version returns to sprite-based art and includes Final Fantasy IV: The After Years along with an Interlude bridging the two games that isn’t available anywhere else. For those who have never played FF4, or those that want the entire story on a single platform, Final Fantasy IV Complete is the version to pick up.

Square Enix is no stranger to rereleasing their back-catalog on modern platforms, but with Final Fantasy IV Complete you get updated sprites and magic effects instead of the same graphics you saw on the SNES (PSX, GBA) or Square Enix’s terrible idea of what 3D on the DS ought to look like (DS). Audio is upgraded as well, but you have the choice between the SNES-original soundtrack and an updated score, and both are worth listening to. While the original is full of classics, the update calls back to the original wonderfully. You won’t forget what you’re playing, and you’ll find yourself humming the new music just as much as the old. Where Final Fantasy IV really shines, though, is its characters. Final Fantasy IV plays the most like a true role-playing game out of any Final Fantasy game I’ve played. Characters are complex, have their own motivations for tagging along with you, and don’t have plot armor. You will control up to five characters at a time, and it’s believable because when you have three party members then that is who you’ll use in battle. You will never have people sitting on the bench while your mains fight, and that’s refreshing. Everybody is walking through this cave, and for once in a JRPG they’re all taking part in every battle.

Odds are that if you’re at all interested in this collection you’ve played Final Fantasy IV. New content is probably why you’re here, and Final Fantasy IV Interlude and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years are it. The After Years was originally only available on the Nintendo Wii through the WiiWare download service, and it follows Cecil’s son Ceodore as a new villain emerges and threatens the world 17 years after you saved it in the original game. You’ll control and meet many of the same characters that you got to know over the course of Final Fantasy IV, and everything should feel familiar. The graphics are the same type of upgraded sprites that you’ll find in Final Fantasy IV. The battle system, though, while similar has seen a couple of updates. First, you can “band” attacks together. Banding works like Double and Triple Techs from Chrono Trigger and makes for more strategic battles. Not everybody can summon (just like Final Fantasy IV characters are restricted to their one preset class), and banding gives you a more powerful option to break out in battles. The second addition is that of lunar cycles. Some monsters only appear during certain phases of the moon, and your party’s combat prowess is affected by the moon as well. Some phases favor melee strength over magic while others are the exact opposite. This means you won’t be leaning just on one party member since every stay at an inn can drastically alter who your primary damage dealer is.

Interlude serves to bridge Final Fantasy IV and The After Years with a chapter showing some of the events that take place in the 17 years between the two. It fits well between the two games, and the style meshes well with the rest of the package, and it should since Interlude had may as well be the new chapter 1 of The After Years.

You’re really getting the most bang for your buck with this package. Upgraded sprite graphics, cutscenes from the DS version, content previously only available via WiiWare, and a chapter that can’t be had on any other platform make The Complete Collection the definitive version of Final Fantasy IV. Now maybe SE can move on to giving Final Fantasy VI a similar treatment on the PSP.

Pros: Tons of content, beautiful upgraded sprites, great musical choices, finally a single collection

Cons: Lack of diagonal movement (FF4 was a SNES game, after all)

Hector: Badge of Carnage E1

May 2, 2011

PC / Reviews / by Justin Last /

I have fond memories of playing Sierra adventure games as a kid. I helped Rosella save the land of Tamriel in King’s Quest IV, I nearly peed my pants playing Shivers 2, and I laughed myself silly playing all of the Space Quest games over and over again. And after my brother and I went to bed, I would listen to my parents playing Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Once I knew it existed I had to play it, and I was hooked. Adventure games were great by themselves, but LSL was fun, funny, and it felt a little naughty. Hector: Badge of Carnage feels much the same with one key exception – I understand all of the jokes now.

The titular Detective Inspector Hector is a rude and lewd excuse for a detective. He would rather do the bare minimum to continue drawing a paycheck than put in a long day’s work to get the job done right, and when the town of Clappers Wreake is taken hostage, it falls to Hector to negotiate with them. Since Badge of Carnage is an adventure game, Hector doesn’t negotiate so much as he takes every demand the terrorists make (strange as they are) and fulfills them. Throughout your “negotiations” you will fix up the town clock tower, start up the town’s renovation campaign, and do your best to knock the Clappers Wreake porn industry down a few pegs.

Badge of Carnage is going to be both familiar and foreign to fans of Telltale. The visuals are cartoony without looking juvenile, the dialogue is great, the voice work is fun (it sounds like about five guys are giving their all and voicing every character – even the female ones), and the puzzles make sense once you take a step back and turn off your sense of disgust. You will have to scoop a paperclip out of a toilet using an old shoelace and a used condom. All of the adventure game staples are there. You need the paperclip, you have both the lace and the condom in your inventory, the two items need to be combined, and after solving the puzzle you can move on.

I am looking forward to episodes two and three of Badge of Carnage, and that is really the highest praise one can give an episodic adventure game because it did its job. I played part 1 and am now chomping at the bit to play parts 2 and 3.

Pros: Great writing, fun raunchy humor

Cons: The game occasionally stutters after a scene plays.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD

April 26, 2011

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Justin Last /

Capy has managed to do with Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD what Infinite Interactive could not do in their two attempts since Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords first combined an RPG mentality with puzzle mechanics. These type of games are perfect for those who like to sit back, take their time, and plan out their battle scenarios. I don’t care a lick about the story, but each and every battle is challenging without feeling cheap, and rewarding without making you feel overpowered.

Clash of Heroes is a port of a DS game, and it shows a little bit. There is more loading than it seems like there ought to be in a game with static maps, little voice acting, and next to no animation. That doesn’t take away from what Clash of Heroes does exceptionally well, however: engrossing battles. At its most basic level, Clash of Heroes plays like Capy’s other recent puzzler, Critter Crunch. Pull a unit off of the stack and put it back down on another stack. Form a vertical set of three, and you have an attack formation while a horizontal set of three forms a defense formation. Wait the prescribed number of turns (no more than three for standard units) and then an attack is unleashed. Taking a cue from Magic: The Gathering, it is useful to attack your opponent’s units, but you will only be victorious after attacking your opponent’s hit points directly.

In addition to your three standard units in three colors, you will pick up special units along the way. The majority of your force will be made up of normal units like rangers, bears, and knights, but you can augment your force by progressing through the story or by winning out-of-the-way battles. Winning these battles is worth it, because as a reward you will find sentient trees, dragons, and unicorns to fight on your side. Elite units work like standard units. Line two units of the same color up behind them, create an attack formation, wait two or three turns, and watch your opponent’s units fall. Champion units are larger and require a square of four standard units behind it. It isn’t always easy to find four available blue rangers to line up behind your dragon, but it’s worth it. Champion attacks are devastating, and they can turn the tide of just about any battle in your favor.

Clash of Heroes reminds me a lot of Othello’s tagline: “A minute to learn… A lifetime to master.” Clash of Heroes is deceptively simple, but the strategies possible when it comes to linking attacks (arranging to have several attacks fire off on the same turn which imparts a bonus on each of them), fusing attacks together (creating two attack formations of the same color in the same column, combining strength and firing at the earlier time), and strategically removing units from the field make for a great experience in both single player and multiplayer. Multiplayer works just like single player, except your opponent is a real live person so you can expect a better challenge than the AI can provide in campaign mode. (There’s also a bonus to the HD version: a co-op battle mode. You can play two-on-two or play against the AI, and each side’s units are color-coded so only one team member can move them.)

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a rare thing – a puzzle RPG that works well. If you enjoyed either Puzzle Quest or Critter Crunch, then Clash of Heroes is a sure hit.

Pros: Surprisingly-deep strategic gameplay

Cons: Unnecessarily-long load times

The 3rd Birthday

April 14, 2011

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last /

The 3rd Birthday is rife with things that don’t make any sense. The story is all over the place, the RPG elements are nearly non-existent, the genre (third person shooter) typically does poorly on the PSP so it has been dumbed down to the point of removing any trace of challenge and, when taken altogether, the entire package does not feel like a part of the generally high-quality Square Enix library.

The 3rd Birthday is not a Parasite Eve game in either name or mechanics. Horror is traded for quick easy fights, and Aya, since she was sent back in time and is able to trade whose mind she inhabits at will, is nearly invincible. If you’re running low on health just jump to another ally a la Mindjack. While the concept is just as interesting here as it was there it realistically only serves to lower the difficulty and make moving through the battlefield ridiculously simple.

Shooters tend to do poorly on the PSP for a very simple reason. The device is not designed for a player to control the camera, the character, and the character’s gun simultaneously. The absence of a second analog input makes everything harder than in should be because when you move camera control to the shoulder buttons you’ve lost the natural location for a trigger, and when you move camera control to the directional pad you insist that the player perform to vital functions with his left thumb. Games like Killzone: Resistance manage to avoid these problems by moving to an isometric perspective which delivers a great and unique gameplay experience. The 3rd Birthday, on the other hand, just has its difficulty ratcheted down to make up for the PSP’s lack of inputs.

This, obviously, takes away from the atmosphere. You move through the bland environments in this fashion for 10 hours. Move forward, lock on to an enemy, unload a clip into it, take cover. Remove lock-on and you have a good formula. Gears of War has been using it successfully for years, but it has some other things going for it. Weapons feel different and are useful in different situations, and moving from cover to cover is vital to keeping your guy alive. The 3rd Birthday‘s difficulty level negates cover, and whatever weapon you have equipped will do the job since you can lock on and be guaranteed that your shots are connecting with their intended target.

Parasite Eve is a series that deserves to be revisited lovingly, and I hope that someday it gets the revival it deserves.

Pros: Battles start and end quickly

Cons: Combat is astoundingly easy, RPG elements are overly light and not taken advantage of, the game’s difficulty is low to compensate for the PSP’s control setup

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