Reviews

Ar tonelico Qoga

April 12, 2011

Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel is exactly what nobody should want or need in a Japanese RPG. It is a step backwards in terms of equipment acquisition and random battles, the real-time combat is tedious, and it treats its female party members as sexual rewards rather than real characters.

RPG developers learned long ago that comparing equipment was useful to players. For some reason, though, Qoga does not feature a useful comparison tool. Other developers mastered this in the PS1 era or before. To miss such a necessity of the genre on a modern console is shocking and it makes the game a chore to play. After you’ve finally equipped your party, you see the only thing that Qoga does right has to do with exploration. The number of random battles in any given area is limited, and the game tells you when a random encounter might be coming up. Unfortunately, the estimator isn’t very accurate, and the maximum number of random encounters per area is so high that you will be done with the area before you’ve exhausted the random encounters that pop up every few steps.

Numerous random encounters wouldn’t be so bad if Qoga allowed for auto-play of unbalanced fights a la Earthbound, but every time a random fight pops up you have to take part in it. Your party is made of tissue paper, so you will spend a good amount of time in each fight tossing healing items at party members instead of playing the interesting part (i.e., fighting, casting magic, and devising strategies). Qoga‘s combat should be exciting and a breath of fresh air as compared to other RPGs. With music as a central focus of the magic and combat systems, the whole thing should feel like a more complex version of Patapon, but instead your time is spent slapping enemies for paltry amounts of damage while your caster’s song reaches its apex and unleashes a decent attack. At this point the whole process repeats and you get bored each time before the battle ends.

Qoga‘s biggest misstep, though, is its treatment of its female characters. As you explore the world you will collect “talk topics” which can be used at inns to get to know your cohorts better. This sounds like a great idea. There is a tangible reward for exploring your surrounding, and you are encouraged to interact with your party members. In towns there are also establishments called “dive shops” where the player character, Aoto, can explore the girls’ subconsciouses. Exploring in this way will eventually make your party members stronger, but the game doesn’t hesitate to tell you that subconscious exploration also causes the girls to take their clothes off in order to be “more in tune with nature.” Good character interaction and in-battle upgrades are enough of a reward, and treating characters like this cheapens the whole game and, honestly, makes me feel like a cad for playing it.

Pros: random battle countdown

Cons: peep show rewards, boring combat

Swarm

April 12, 2011

Reviews / Xbox 360 / by Andrew Passafiume /

Hothead Games has become one of the few go-to developers for projects that seem similar to something you’ve played before, but offer distinctive takes on that familiarity. Swarm is another example of that, offering gameplay that seems like it might be similar to Lemmings, but with enough variety and (uneven) difficulty to mix things up.

You control a group of 50 creatures known as swarmites: small blue aliens that are very adorable, but not so adorable that you don’t mind watching them die in horrible ways. They are fairly dumb, so it’s your job to control them as a unit and to get them from one end of the level to the other. The other main goal is to reach a certain score by the end of the level in order to unlock the next one. Seems simple enough, right?

You have two main ways of earning points: killing your swarmites and collecting glowing swarmite food that you’ll find inside of boxes and other destructible objects scattered throughout each level. You also have a multiplier, which will continue to increase the more you pick up food and kill swarmites. You have to do whatever is necessary to get to the end of the level with at least one swarmite in tact while also maintaining your combo to achieve the highest score possible. It can be a bit hectic, to say the least.

The main problem is the difficulty, which reaches such a steep curve by the halfway point that most gamers might want to throw their controllers against the wall in frustration. The gameplay is oddly addictive. This is despite the sadistic nature of the level design and the manner in which you are meant to collect swarmite food while keeping some of your little blue friends alive. The game fails to reach a nice balance between the two, and you’ll find yourself often just achieving one or the other, not both.

It’s tough. And not in the way that makes you want to keep trying to improve your scores or get better at each level. You’ll reach a point where you’ll probably just stop caring. Each subsequent level requires you to move faster, doing whatever it takes to keep your combo going while the designers throw everything at you to make sure you lose. One of those things is a buggy camera, which will sometimes not follow your swarmites or only follow one or two of them instead of your entire group. This can lead to you running into deathtraps or off the edge of the level without realizing it until it’s too late.

The checkpoint system goes easy on you, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t finish the level with the necessary score. It works in some of the earlier levels, but others it just becomes tedious. Combine that with the game’s tendency to freeze often, and you have one interesting game in a technically-hampered package.

It’s hard to recommend Swarm. It is a very fun game that is brought down by some poor design choices and uneven difficulty. The core gameplay is functional and it does supply some very addictive gameplay, but it could have been so much better.

Pros: Solid controls; basic gameplay is functional and, at times, addictive

Cons: The difficulty curve is uneven; camera is unreliable; game locks up regularly

Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy

April 11, 2011

PSP / Reviews / by Gerry Pagan /

The original Dissidia: Final Fantasy is arguably the closest thing to the perfect fanservice game, given that not many series boast such a large amount of entries with different casts of characters. While the service was great though, the actual gameplay mechanics were far from refined, and what could have also been a top-notch game didn’t quite reach its full potential. Enter Dissidia Duodecim, a sequel of sorts which expands upon the game’s core elements and fixes some of the issues most prevalent with its precursor, though it also introduces some new issues that might put people off.

As with any expansion to a fighting game series, Duodecim has the standard fare of new characters, new stages, new gameplay mechanics, and in some rare cases, new story. Among these new mechanics comes the ability to assign an assist character, turning battles into a pseudo-tag-team affair where you can call upon your partner for offense or defense. In addition, party battles (which are fought in a tournament or a round-robin style) and world map have been added, further exploring the series’ RPG roots. The barebones “dungeons” from DFF have been reworked into gateways you enter while wandering around the world map, which no longer force any restrictions on you and can be tackled at your own pace. Do you want to beat the minimum amount of enemies and move on, or maximize EXP, items, money and points by chaining every enemy? Both options are available to cater to different mindsets.

The story mode for Duodecim takes place before the first game’s, highlighting the events that set the groundwork for Dissidia’s final battle. In a nice surprise, Square Enix actually re-did the story mode from the first game with Duodecim’s new mechanics and gameplay features, making it easy to see how the stories intersect and improving the previous game’s lackluster dungeons. On the downside, the new world map feels barren at times, as there’s nothing to do in it besides enter gateways and fight off random generic enemies. There’s hardly any exploration either, as most character stories involve going in a straight line on the world map until you hit the next gateway. It’s a nice touch and a step above the restrictive dungeon design in DFF, but it’s something that still needs work done to make it interesting.

There were key issues with the game’s main feature, fighting, that kept DFF from reaching its potential. While the game never punished players for engaging in aerial combat, it did nothing to encourage players to stick to the ground either. Since there were only 2 or 3 characters that excelled at ground combat, fights in DFF would devolve to permanently dodging in the air, dashing and just plain never touching the ground during the whole match. This has been reworked in Duodecim, as characters fall much faster, jumps aren’t refreshed after performing an air dodge, and most moves have been re-worked to discourage sticking to the air 100% of the time. The new characters nicely fill in the niche of play styles that hadn’t been implemented, such as the firearm antics of Laguna, summoning creatures ala Yuna or up-close brawling like Tifa and Prishe. All in all, the base gameplay has received enough fine-tuning to make it much more enjoyable, whether you just plan on beating up AI or duking it out locally with friends.

The presentation for Duodecim is also a step above its precursor’s, though given how harshly DFF was judged when it came to this, anything can only be an improvement. Characters are much more animated during cut scenes, the game’s lighting effects are much better done (given how every character in the first game looked like they were covered in a shiny aura), and the track list has at least doubled in size from DFF. Nearly every character has a song for wandering through the world map and exploring the gateways, all composed of either well-done remixes of classic tunes or straight rips of the originals. Add to this the extra alternate costumes for every character, all based on either original artwork or alternate clothing from each character’s game of origin, and you’ve got a game that further delivers on what was already one of best fanservice games created.

Dissidia Duodecim is not for the casual fighting game player. This is a game custom-tailored for the long-time fans of the series, those who already know who the entire cast is and their motivations for why they fight. It’s not a perfect fighting game, but you can tell that it has received a lot of polish and care from its developers. For $30, its well worth quite a few hours of entertainment, though without being knowledgeable with the source material, it’s easy to become tangled in the complex web of character relationships and struggles.

Samurai Warriors Chronicles

April 11, 2011

3DS / Reviews / by Graham Russell /

When you pick up one of Omega Force’s Warriors games, you know what you’re going to get. All play similarly, with huge casts of characters, weapons to collect and maps with officers to hack and slash to death. Samurai Warriors Chronicles is very much one of those games, and people looking for a profound shift in what the game is are out of luck. There’s quite a contingent of people who love the feeling of playing these games, though, as it’s the game equivalent of a cheap pizza: it may not be a high-quality meal, but it’s comforting to kick back with a slice.

This time, you’ll be kicking back in 3D, though. The game implements it subtly, and that’s nice. the engine runs well, and the smaller viewing area helps with the series’ trademark framerate and slowdown issues. It certainly isn’t trying anything new, but that’s not exactly unexpected. Thankfully, though, Chronicles doesn’t use the segmented-map tactics of the series’ previous portable titles, as the grand map is what really makes the game fun.

In the campaign mode, you create a character and play through his or her life. There’s not that much to the customization, but you do name the person and answer some personality questions to determine base attributes. The visuals aren’t customizable, but the protagonist is in many cutscenes and that’s probably the reason. The one twist in Chronicles that changes the gameplay? You control a group of up to four different warriors on the battlefield, and over the course of the battle you’ll be presented with short-term goals to complete. These often have time limits of as low as 30 seconds, and that’s where the switching comes in: battlefield positioning can keep you from losing valuable seconds in completing missions. Some missions even require that a specific character complete a task like defeating an officer or defending an area. Most aren’t vital to winning the whole battle, but each gives a bonus like experience or items, and it’s recorded for people who strive for completion.

There are some things included to keep you busy after completing (or between advancing in) the campaign. You can return to battles you’ve cleared to grind for levels and try out new strategies. You can also use StreetPass functionality in a similar way to Street Fighter, with your characters’ stats used for passive skirmishes with others’ team. It’s a fun diversion, but there’s not much depth there. Sadly, there’s no actual multiplayer here either, and we would have liked to see that, since co-op makes the console versions a lot more fun.

Sure, Samurai Warriors Chronicles feels a bit recycled, but in a launch lineup of recycled games, it has an interesting storyline, a polished engine and a formula great for just passing the time. Your level of enjoyment entirely depends on whether you like the series, but there’s no fatal flaw here to keep you from having a good time.

Pros: Progression and replay value in a depth-starved launch, smooth controls

Cons: Too frantic at times with character switching, Warriors fatigue in full effect

Vertigo

April 8, 2011

PSP / Reviews / by Mike Clark /

Vertigo is a game where you attempt to race a “Xorb”, essentially a customizable marble, though a wide selection of tracks suspended high in the sky. Ideally, your goal is to go through all of the checkpoints and reach the end as fast as possible, with medals and point rewards for reaching this goal under certain times. There are infinite retries, four different gameplay modes between Arcade, Career, Time Trial and “Xorb Bowling”, limited multiplayer and so on. It sounds like a nice title at first.

However, just because the tracks are high in the sky doesn’t mean this game is as heavenly as Icon Games has promoted it to be. More often than not the tracks you’re on have pencil-thin roads and railways for you to navigate. Sharp turns, sheer drops that do a disservice to the camera angles and few checkpoints create an environment where you’ll drive less like an F-Zero racer and more like a senior citizen: slowly and slamming the brakes every couple of seconds. At least, if you want to live that is. Otherwise you will end up dying repeatedly, having to sit through the literal five or so seconds it takes for your Xorb to tumble all the way down to the invisible “Out of Bounds” barrier at the bottom of each track; the same period of time that is added to your time as a penalty each time you die.

The Xorb by default handles decently enough, but the career mode adds in a tuning function to allow you to further enhance your Xorb’s statistics. While a nice touch in premise, the ease at which you can max out the Xorb’s stats makes going for the medals required to get the points used on stats superfluous. With the equivalent of one gold and two bronze medals I had the Xorb maxed out, and there’s 56 or so tracks to this game.

All in all, Vertigo is really only a game for two types of people: fans of marble games like Marble Blast Ultra and Switchball, and masochists who enjoy an unfair and harsh challenge. And while the portability of the PSP version can be better than the PC and Wii versions, the oddly-long loading times for a downloadable title may turn some people away.

Pros: Large amount of stages and game modes, many Xorb customization choices

Cons: Tedious and harsh gameplay, long load times, deaths take too long to sit through

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →