12/19/08
11/25/08
Sonic Unleashed [Wii]
When I buy a Sonic game, it’s because I want to play ping-pong with an F-16, but forces like my girlfriend and the laws of physics prohibit me. I get the impression that most people have similar expectations. Except for Sega, who decided that Sonic should spend half the game as a slow-ass werewolf. This is absurd, since Sonic already has characteristics of both hedgehog and human, so I don’t know how the hell he can become half wolf, half hedgehog, half person.
The “speed” levels where you play as regular old Sonic the Hedgehog are amazing. They’re nearly perfect. Sonic’s 3d controls have been completely revamped. The archaic spin-dash has been sidelined in favor of new maneuvers: the Flash Step and the Drift. Drifting is reminiscent of Mario Kart, while the Flash Step has obviously been lifted from Dragon Ball Z. These moves work so well partly because the levels are designed to implement them. Drifting around turns and flash stepping to avoid obstacles feels natural. A third technique, the Sonic Boost, allows Sonic to expend his boost gauge to gain a temporary speed burst. The gauge is filled by collecting rings, which also still act as health. The synergy all these mechanics are able to produce is mind blowing; it’s undoubtedly the best 3d control scheme Sonic has ever had. In fact, the speed stages were so much better and more realized than the rest of the game that I felt certain they must have been designed by a different team.
It turns out, I was right. I dug around and found out Sonic Team designed the entire game, with the ironic exception of the levels where you actually play as Sonic. These levels were designed by Osaka-based Dimps, who also developed the excellent Sonic Rush games.
Weresonic is a confusing element. I think that since the major complaint about Sonic adventure was, “We don’t even get to play as Sonic enough!” This is Sega’s little way of saying, “Well, you’re playing as Sonic the whole time,” even though we're not. The reality of Weresonic is that he looks, moves, and for all gameplay intents and purposes is...Knuckles. (For those who are not Sonic-savvy, Knuckles is the red guy in Sonic 3.) The fact that Sega was trying to trick me into playing as Knuckles when I really just wanted to play as Sonic put me off before I even touched the game. But I have to admit, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.
Knuckles’ air-glide has gone the way of the spin-dash, in favor of a double jump. His other traditional moves, climbing things and beating things, are in tact. The controls, overall, are surprisingly tight. Even the waggle based combat works. The camera doesn’t even suck, which is probably a first for a 3d Sonic game.
What does suck is the level design. It’s completely boring -- there’s nothing to do in the Weresonic levels! You fight some things, you jump over some platforms, find a few things to open a door, flip a switch, rinse and repeat. I had horrible flashbacks to N64 platformers. To make matters worse, these portions are sandwiched between some the most enjoyable and dynamic Sonic levels ever designed.
Weresonic's environments are boring, too. There’s the lava level, the desert level, the ice level, ect. But I do have to admit, the moonlit jungle with its haunting soundtrack, and unique aesthetic, at least kept me interested even though I was just doing the same stupid crap over and over again.
A minor problem I had was that sometimes the auto-target feature just didn’t target fast enough for me. I would forgive Sonic Team, if only I wasn’t sitting there holding a pointing device in my hand.
For some reason there are multiple hubs to select levels from. The world selection screen is a hub that allows you to select which level to play, but so are the various temples located throughout the world. The temples are accessible from both the village hubs and the main overwold screen. So Unleashed actually has three different level hubs. Confusing? The developers seemed to think so. At one point I fought my way to the center of a temple, only to be told that we would have to leave, fly halfway around the world to a village, only to be told by a professor that I should go back to the temple I was in and fight the boss. Gee thanks, how would I have ever known that the Ice Boss was in the fucking Ice Temple.
If there are two things that Sonic Team has always done well, it’s music and boss fights. Unleashed is no exception. It features mostly live instrumental tracks, including a strangely placed love song that successfully eroticizes a scene with Sonic and his “buddy,” Chip. But that’s okay with me, one of the reasons I like Japanese games is the homoerotic undertones. The tunes are mostly solid, with a few weak tracks here and there -- although sadly my favorite Japanese NASCAR enthusiasts, CRUSH 40, do not make an appearance.
The boss battles are solid as well , even the Weresonic ones. These epic fights can hold their own against any AAA title. Which makes me wonder, “Sonic Team, why do you have to suck at everything else?” Maybe after this they won’t try to add some weird gimmick to the next Sonic game…er..wait a second:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_and_the_Black_Knight
Oh, fuck.
Well, I hope this guy is right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi4QVN_8y4g
The “speed” levels where you play as regular old Sonic the Hedgehog are amazing. They’re nearly perfect. Sonic’s 3d controls have been completely revamped. The archaic spin-dash has been sidelined in favor of new maneuvers: the Flash Step and the Drift. Drifting is reminiscent of Mario Kart, while the Flash Step has obviously been lifted from Dragon Ball Z. These moves work so well partly because the levels are designed to implement them. Drifting around turns and flash stepping to avoid obstacles feels natural. A third technique, the Sonic Boost, allows Sonic to expend his boost gauge to gain a temporary speed burst. The gauge is filled by collecting rings, which also still act as health. The synergy all these mechanics are able to produce is mind blowing; it’s undoubtedly the best 3d control scheme Sonic has ever had. In fact, the speed stages were so much better and more realized than the rest of the game that I felt certain they must have been designed by a different team.
It turns out, I was right. I dug around and found out Sonic Team designed the entire game, with the ironic exception of the levels where you actually play as Sonic. These levels were designed by Osaka-based Dimps, who also developed the excellent Sonic Rush games.
Weresonic is a confusing element. I think that since the major complaint about Sonic adventure was, “We don’t even get to play as Sonic enough!” This is Sega’s little way of saying, “Well, you’re playing as Sonic the whole time,” even though we're not. The reality of Weresonic is that he looks, moves, and for all gameplay intents and purposes is...Knuckles. (For those who are not Sonic-savvy, Knuckles is the red guy in Sonic 3.) The fact that Sega was trying to trick me into playing as Knuckles when I really just wanted to play as Sonic put me off before I even touched the game. But I have to admit, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.
Knuckles’ air-glide has gone the way of the spin-dash, in favor of a double jump. His other traditional moves, climbing things and beating things, are in tact. The controls, overall, are surprisingly tight. Even the waggle based combat works. The camera doesn’t even suck, which is probably a first for a 3d Sonic game.
What does suck is the level design. It’s completely boring -- there’s nothing to do in the Weresonic levels! You fight some things, you jump over some platforms, find a few things to open a door, flip a switch, rinse and repeat. I had horrible flashbacks to N64 platformers. To make matters worse, these portions are sandwiched between some the most enjoyable and dynamic Sonic levels ever designed.
Weresonic's environments are boring, too. There’s the lava level, the desert level, the ice level, ect. But I do have to admit, the moonlit jungle with its haunting soundtrack, and unique aesthetic, at least kept me interested even though I was just doing the same stupid crap over and over again.
A minor problem I had was that sometimes the auto-target feature just didn’t target fast enough for me. I would forgive Sonic Team, if only I wasn’t sitting there holding a pointing device in my hand.
For some reason there are multiple hubs to select levels from. The world selection screen is a hub that allows you to select which level to play, but so are the various temples located throughout the world. The temples are accessible from both the village hubs and the main overwold screen. So Unleashed actually has three different level hubs. Confusing? The developers seemed to think so. At one point I fought my way to the center of a temple, only to be told that we would have to leave, fly halfway around the world to a village, only to be told by a professor that I should go back to the temple I was in and fight the boss. Gee thanks, how would I have ever known that the Ice Boss was in the fucking Ice Temple.
If there are two things that Sonic Team has always done well, it’s music and boss fights. Unleashed is no exception. It features mostly live instrumental tracks, including a strangely placed love song that successfully eroticizes a scene with Sonic and his “buddy,” Chip. But that’s okay with me, one of the reasons I like Japanese games is the homoerotic undertones. The tunes are mostly solid, with a few weak tracks here and there -- although sadly my favorite Japanese NASCAR enthusiasts, CRUSH 40, do not make an appearance.
The boss battles are solid as well , even the Weresonic ones. These epic fights can hold their own against any AAA title. Which makes me wonder, “Sonic Team, why do you have to suck at everything else?” Maybe after this they won’t try to add some weird gimmick to the next Sonic game…er..wait a second:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_and_the_Black_Knight
Oh, fuck.
Well, I hope this guy is right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi4QVN_8y4g
11/18/08
Is Deadly Towers Really That Bad?
In the continued quest to find the least playable game of all time, I subject myself to Deadly Towers during the time of year when the industry releases almost all of it's top quality titles. I am obviously insane.
If Google searches are to be believed, then Deadly Towers is the closest thing to an internet wide consensus of “teh worst game evar.” In the old days, before Seanbaby figured out how to transform dick jokes into money (hint: you need baking soda), he reviewed DT as the #1 worst NES game. One of the game’s producers sent Seanbaby the following email, which was subsequently added to the review:
“I produced the game and it wasn't THAT bad for the times...some of the others are WAY worse. Nice to see it again, though.
Alan Weiss – Producer”
I’m not so sure about that, Alan Weiss. I’m not so sure about that, at all. I went into Deadly Towers with a positive mindset. I was going to beat it. I mean, people hate Simon’s Quest, and I like that game, so who knows right? “I will beat Deadly Towers,” I declared. I was lying. The following is the synopsis of my first two screens of DT:
Screen 1: Prince Myer teleports in front of what I’m assuming is a tower. There are scary faces on the tower, so you know it is deadly. Teleporting; kind of unconventional in a fantasy game, but whatever. Color palate is bland, but we’re talking early NES game here so I can deal. I press the pad. “8 way directional walk. It can’t be that bad if it has 8 way walk,” I thought at the time (another lie). I press the B button. Myer shoots a sword, provocatively. Images speak louder than words here, but the myths are true: Myer ejaculates swords. I enter a door.
Screen 2: Wow there’s lots of enemies. I try to move in and fight; I’m instantly overrun and die. This happens a few more times, with a little strategizing, I’m able to clear the bats and the weird...puddle monsters, and I turn my focus to the blue sphere. The blue sphere absorbs somewhere between 30 and 40 swords before dying. I walk to the right, fireballs rise up much faster than I can move and knock me off the tower. Death.
I was ready to quit. It was November, there was a myriad of new triple A releases for me to be enjoying. I remember thinking, “Animal Crossing comes out at midnight. Maybe I should just play that instead.” But I didn’t want to let Deadly Towers turn me into a liar. “I will defeat these towers!” I yelled. I trudged on. I trudged all the way through the first dungeon before swearing never to play Deadly Towers again. What went wrong? How could I have fallen so far from my original ambitions? I mean literally, I fell off the tower dozens of times. Was it my shortcomings as gamer that prevented me from thoroughly enjoying this game?
The only thing that Deadly Towers does correctly is 8 way movement. Every other gameplay element is fucked up in some way. But the problems don’t end there. These fucked up gameplay elements weave together, perfectly creating a sinister web of horrible gameplay situations that I never imagined possible.
Case 1: Myer’s sword. Which he shoots our of his crotch. Weird and counterintuitive to begin with, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they were going for lolz. The problem with the sword shooting mechanic is that Myer can only shoot a single sword at a time. He has to wait for the first sword to hit its target before he can shoot another one. If Myer misses, he’s a sitting duck, since the sword travels very slowly across the entire screen and can’t be cancelled. If this were not bad enough, many basic enemies require dozens of hits to kill. The Wikipedia for DT points out that even the instruction manual warns gamers that
Myer’s sword sucks:
"SHORT SWORD -- You start the game with this sword. It is so weak, you feel lonely (you have no confidence in this sword)."
This shows that the team realized, at least on some level, aware of how difficult combat was. They either didn’t see, or didn’t care, how awkward and un-fun it was.
Case 2: Waves of fireballs. They swarm certain areas from bottom to top. They don’t move so quickly that Myer can’t dodge them, but he can’t destroy them with his sword effectively because they take so many hits that the next wave would be onscreen before he could kill a single fireball. Myer can’t just dodge the fire waves though, because of another problem. Areas often have way too many enemies on screen compared to how much ground Myer has available to stand on. The safest thing is for Myer to clear out the enemies before he can goes near the path where the fire comes up, but when enemies can take dozens of hits to kill, he can only shoot a single slow moving sword at a time, and he has to stand and shoot them from across the screen, gameplay grows tedious. The fire wave paths often are also often in areas where Myer can be knocked off the ledge of the tower, which is an instant game over. Myer is knocked backwards when he’s hit, so whenever I tried to make a run through it past the fire without killing at least most of the onscreen enemies, Myer would be overwhelmed, pushed back, and then thrown to his death.
Case 3: Invisible doors. These wouldn’t be so bad, by themselves. Perhaps they could’ve concealed desirable morsels. This was not the case. I never actually found an invisible door, per say; it found me. I was knocked back by an enemy and found myself transported into a maze-like labyrinth. I assumed I must have stumbled upon the game’s first dungeon. This was not the case. The truth about the secret doors in DT is that they lead into mazes which serve only to trap the player and distract him from actually progressing in the game. They are not tiny mazes, either; although thankfully they’re just extensive grids. However, the mazes are filled with deadly scorpions and other monsters; it is difficult to navigate through without taking some serious damage. To make matters worse, the only way to heal, early on, is through items dropped by enemies, but the drop rates are incredibly low. In bizarre twist of fate, this all works out for the better because the easiest way out of the mazes is to simply die and be transported back to the entrance of the Tower.
Deadly Towers is the poster child for bad design. I don’t think I’ve ever played anything that executed so many gameplay elements so perfectly wrong. It’s almost poetic. It’s almost worth playing. You’ll appreciate your other games more. Alan Weiss claims that there are worse NES games, and I think he means that there are games like Bible Adventures, that had very little thought put into them. But the saving grace of a game like Bible Adventures is that it’s so simple it’s not really that bad. There’s only so many things that could’ve gone wrong with it in the first place. Plus you get to play as Moses. Deadly Towers isn’t bad for a lack of trying, it’s bad because they tried a little too hard. The team implemented all sorts of unprecedented elements. The complicated mechanisms just don’t function together. I get the impression that it was playtested by designers who knew where everything was, who knew the maps. It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to ever find a game whose core architecture is as fucked as DT’s. It very well may be the worst game ever made.
If Google searches are to be believed, then Deadly Towers is the closest thing to an internet wide consensus of “teh worst game evar.” In the old days, before Seanbaby figured out how to transform dick jokes into money (hint: you need baking soda), he reviewed DT as the #1 worst NES game. One of the game’s producers sent Seanbaby the following email, which was subsequently added to the review:
“I produced the game and it wasn't THAT bad for the times...some of the others are WAY worse. Nice to see it again, though.
Alan Weiss – Producer”
I’m not so sure about that, Alan Weiss. I’m not so sure about that, at all. I went into Deadly Towers with a positive mindset. I was going to beat it. I mean, people hate Simon’s Quest, and I like that game, so who knows right? “I will beat Deadly Towers,” I declared. I was lying. The following is the synopsis of my first two screens of DT:
Screen 1: Prince Myer teleports in front of what I’m assuming is a tower. There are scary faces on the tower, so you know it is deadly. Teleporting; kind of unconventional in a fantasy game, but whatever. Color palate is bland, but we’re talking early NES game here so I can deal. I press the pad. “8 way directional walk. It can’t be that bad if it has 8 way walk,” I thought at the time (another lie). I press the B button. Myer shoots a sword, provocatively. Images speak louder than words here, but the myths are true: Myer ejaculates swords. I enter a door.
Screen 2: Wow there’s lots of enemies. I try to move in and fight; I’m instantly overrun and die. This happens a few more times, with a little strategizing, I’m able to clear the bats and the weird...puddle monsters, and I turn my focus to the blue sphere. The blue sphere absorbs somewhere between 30 and 40 swords before dying. I walk to the right, fireballs rise up much faster than I can move and knock me off the tower. Death.
I was ready to quit. It was November, there was a myriad of new triple A releases for me to be enjoying. I remember thinking, “Animal Crossing comes out at midnight. Maybe I should just play that instead.” But I didn’t want to let Deadly Towers turn me into a liar. “I will defeat these towers!” I yelled. I trudged on. I trudged all the way through the first dungeon before swearing never to play Deadly Towers again. What went wrong? How could I have fallen so far from my original ambitions? I mean literally, I fell off the tower dozens of times. Was it my shortcomings as gamer that prevented me from thoroughly enjoying this game?
The only thing that Deadly Towers does correctly is 8 way movement. Every other gameplay element is fucked up in some way. But the problems don’t end there. These fucked up gameplay elements weave together, perfectly creating a sinister web of horrible gameplay situations that I never imagined possible.
Case 1: Myer’s sword. Which he shoots our of his crotch. Weird and counterintuitive to begin with, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they were going for lolz. The problem with the sword shooting mechanic is that Myer can only shoot a single sword at a time. He has to wait for the first sword to hit its target before he can shoot another one. If Myer misses, he’s a sitting duck, since the sword travels very slowly across the entire screen and can’t be cancelled. If this were not bad enough, many basic enemies require dozens of hits to kill. The Wikipedia for DT points out that even the instruction manual warns gamers that
Myer’s sword sucks:
"SHORT SWORD -- You start the game with this sword. It is so weak, you feel lonely (you have no confidence in this sword)."
This shows that the team realized, at least on some level, aware of how difficult combat was. They either didn’t see, or didn’t care, how awkward and un-fun it was.
Case 2: Waves of fireballs. They swarm certain areas from bottom to top. They don’t move so quickly that Myer can’t dodge them, but he can’t destroy them with his sword effectively because they take so many hits that the next wave would be onscreen before he could kill a single fireball. Myer can’t just dodge the fire waves though, because of another problem. Areas often have way too many enemies on screen compared to how much ground Myer has available to stand on. The safest thing is for Myer to clear out the enemies before he can goes near the path where the fire comes up, but when enemies can take dozens of hits to kill, he can only shoot a single slow moving sword at a time, and he has to stand and shoot them from across the screen, gameplay grows tedious. The fire wave paths often are also often in areas where Myer can be knocked off the ledge of the tower, which is an instant game over. Myer is knocked backwards when he’s hit, so whenever I tried to make a run through it past the fire without killing at least most of the onscreen enemies, Myer would be overwhelmed, pushed back, and then thrown to his death.
Case 3: Invisible doors. These wouldn’t be so bad, by themselves. Perhaps they could’ve concealed desirable morsels. This was not the case. I never actually found an invisible door, per say; it found me. I was knocked back by an enemy and found myself transported into a maze-like labyrinth. I assumed I must have stumbled upon the game’s first dungeon. This was not the case. The truth about the secret doors in DT is that they lead into mazes which serve only to trap the player and distract him from actually progressing in the game. They are not tiny mazes, either; although thankfully they’re just extensive grids. However, the mazes are filled with deadly scorpions and other monsters; it is difficult to navigate through without taking some serious damage. To make matters worse, the only way to heal, early on, is through items dropped by enemies, but the drop rates are incredibly low. In bizarre twist of fate, this all works out for the better because the easiest way out of the mazes is to simply die and be transported back to the entrance of the Tower.
Deadly Towers is the poster child for bad design. I don’t think I’ve ever played anything that executed so many gameplay elements so perfectly wrong. It’s almost poetic. It’s almost worth playing. You’ll appreciate your other games more. Alan Weiss claims that there are worse NES games, and I think he means that there are games like Bible Adventures, that had very little thought put into them. But the saving grace of a game like Bible Adventures is that it’s so simple it’s not really that bad. There’s only so many things that could’ve gone wrong with it in the first place. Plus you get to play as Moses. Deadly Towers isn’t bad for a lack of trying, it’s bad because they tried a little too hard. The team implemented all sorts of unprecedented elements. The complicated mechanisms just don’t function together. I get the impression that it was playtested by designers who knew where everything was, who knew the maps. It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to ever find a game whose core architecture is as fucked as DT’s. It very well may be the worst game ever made.
11/4/08
The beginning of the end
My old buddy Shineget64 was inspired to type up his impressions of the much loathed Sonic 2k6. This marks the beginning of a series where we review every infamously bad game - or at least ten of them - to determine the most unplayable video game ever created. - RFO
Watching all of Let's Play Sonic 2K6 inspired me to try it for myself and with it being only $10 now I decided to risk it since it's a relatively small price to pay if I end up not liking it. I just beat Silver in Sonic's game which according to the menu screen is 23% through his story. It's certainly not a good game, but I don't think it's so bad that it's unplayable either.
PROS
+I like the story and the voice acting so far (except for Tails, I want to cut him every time he speaks). The cutscenes are well done and have a great sense of style and execution
+As with every Sonic game, the soundtrack is top notch. Before ever playing the game I was always a fan of His World.
+Collectable medals in the hub and stages as well as getting them for earning S-Ranks. As a completionist, this is the type of stuff I love.
CONS
- The physics are all wrong. Jumping is too stiff and Sonic likes to get stuck in walls if he gets too close to them. On loops a few times, Sonic just likes to run off the edge into the abyss instead of completing the circle.
- As everyone knows the loading times are terrible, although in practice they seem shorter when I'm playing it compared to when I watched it in LPS2K6 so it's not quite as bad.
- Hub world is kind of pointless. I'm very glad that Sonic Unleashed's hub world is optional and doesn't need to be done if you don't want to (or in the case of the Wii/PS2 versions it's been pretty much removed completely in favor of a point and click map ala Sonic Adventure 2)
NOT AS BAD AS ADVERTISED
- The camera. When things are actually going it's fine and it's just when you want to stop and explore that things get dicey. Even then I found that just hitting L1 or R1 (I forget which one) repositions the camera behind Sonic no matter what's happening. It's saved me many times when I would have probably died trying to fix the camera manually.
-The stages themselves. Like the camera once things gets going it's pretty fun and comparable to earlier 3D Sonics. The auto-running segments are also a lot more fun in practice then they were watching them in the videos because I love stuff like with. Both boss fights so far were alright too against the Cerberus and Silver.
So uhh...yeah it's not a good game but I also dont' think it's as bad as advertised so far. I'd probably give it a 6/10 or so right now. I guess we'll see what happens as I play more and as I begin to play as Silver and eventually Shadow. At the very least...it's better than Shadow the Hedgehog.
*****
Watching all of Let's Play Sonic 2K6 inspired me to try it for myself and with it being only $10 now I decided to risk it since it's a relatively small price to pay if I end up not liking it. I just beat Silver in Sonic's game which according to the menu screen is 23% through his story. It's certainly not a good game, but I don't think it's so bad that it's unplayable either.
PROS
+I like the story and the voice acting so far (except for Tails, I want to cut him every time he speaks). The cutscenes are well done and have a great sense of style and execution
+As with every Sonic game, the soundtrack is top notch. Before ever playing the game I was always a fan of His World.
+Collectable medals in the hub and stages as well as getting them for earning S-Ranks. As a completionist, this is the type of stuff I love.
CONS
- The physics are all wrong. Jumping is too stiff and Sonic likes to get stuck in walls if he gets too close to them. On loops a few times, Sonic just likes to run off the edge into the abyss instead of completing the circle.
- As everyone knows the loading times are terrible, although in practice they seem shorter when I'm playing it compared to when I watched it in LPS2K6 so it's not quite as bad.
- Hub world is kind of pointless. I'm very glad that Sonic Unleashed's hub world is optional and doesn't need to be done if you don't want to (or in the case of the Wii/PS2 versions it's been pretty much removed completely in favor of a point and click map ala Sonic Adventure 2)
NOT AS BAD AS ADVERTISED
- The camera. When things are actually going it's fine and it's just when you want to stop and explore that things get dicey. Even then I found that just hitting L1 or R1 (I forget which one) repositions the camera behind Sonic no matter what's happening. It's saved me many times when I would have probably died trying to fix the camera manually.
-The stages themselves. Like the camera once things gets going it's pretty fun and comparable to earlier 3D Sonics. The auto-running segments are also a lot more fun in practice then they were watching them in the videos because I love stuff like with. Both boss fights so far were alright too against the Cerberus and Silver.
So uhh...yeah it's not a good game but I also dont' think it's as bad as advertised so far. I'd probably give it a 6/10 or so right now. I guess we'll see what happens as I play more and as I begin to play as Silver and eventually Shadow. At the very least...it's better than Shadow the Hedgehog.
2/9/08
Bioshock (PC) Review
Okay, so everyone’s already played Bioshock. In fact, it was many people’s GOTY for 2007, and ranks thirteenth over at gamerankings. So why review it now? Well, since I don’t have an Xbox 360, it’s the closest I can get to doing a review of a 360 game. I also already played through it, so that’s a plus.
That being said, what of this game they call Bioshock? Unless you actually live in a failed underwater dystopia, you probably know that the game’s an incredibly atmospheric FPS. The art design in Bioshock is so good, it’s ridiculous. The entire city was forged, yes forged, in modernist art deco. The designers poured through tracks of music from the 1940’s to find the ones that best fit their game. These tracks play over the city’s PA system between ominous public service announcements. The menu screens play unsettling piano notes as you scroll through them. The amount of detail put into the underwater city of Rapture is ridiculous. I can only imagine a world where every developer combs their environments with 2k’s level of scrutiny. It’s a sunny world.
Bioshock doesn’t really use story and time-based events to railroad the player through a specific level, such as a game like Half-Life 2. Instead, 2k took an approach that’s more like corralling the player. You’re given an objective in a particular section of Rapture, and then you’re free to move about at your leisure until you complete it. You then uncover the story at your own pace. You can also backtrack to previous levels, if you want to pick up extra power-ups, or tie up some loose ends, but it’s not required to do so.
This pacing method is cool, because it makes you actually feel like you’re one of the many crazed, underwater junkies that you find yourself killing. But, that’s not to say the execution is without problems. For one, you’re constantly being sidetracked. And not just, find the key, flip the switch. It’s more like, travel to the opposite side of the city, collect X amount of certain items, then flip the switch, and then it didn’t work so…you get the point. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the overarching objective is never really that complicated that I feel like I shouldn’t have been able to accomplish it and keep playing the game. It’s a discouraging element, because the real meat of the game is parts that make you feel like you’re side tracked from what you’re actually supposed to be doing.
There’s another problem with the miniature sandbox approach; it’s just not a big enough sandbox. The style works great for the first hour or two. After that, things get fairly repetitive. For one, there are only so many different types of enemies. While it’s cool that there’s tons of ways to kill enemies, that’s really all there is to do. Well, technically you can also use hacking to take control of turrets, security robots, and even get deals from vending machines. I enjoyed the hacking minigame, but it was something that occurred so frequently that even it got redundant after awhile.
Boil the game down, you have to get from point A to point B and there are enemies blocking the way. Granted, this is what any action game boils down to, but unlike games like Half Life 2 and Resident Evil 4, there’s nothing that breaks up the pacing in Bioshock. You’re immediate objective is almost always, “kill these enemies.” And fighting each enemy is almost exactly the same as fighting the enemy before it. Even the ominous Big Daddies become boring after awhile. This is especially true due to the fact that there’s no penalty when you die. You simply respawn at one of the overly abundant regeneration tubes. Because of that, there’s no real reason to worry about strategy against the Big Daddies. All you need is enough firepower to kill one and a nearby regeneration tube.
What kept me playing Bioshock was the games atmosphere and impressively well executed story. The tale of the fall of rapture and the tragic lives of its doomed citizens is undoubtetly one of the best plots in a video game, ever. It’s not perfect though. 2k attempted to use a morality based fork in the story to offer multiple endings. The problem is that that all the game really cares about is your attitude towards the creepy little sisters, who are essentially walking power ups. Killing even one of them means that you get the” bad” ending. It just seems archaic when compared with the sort of morality systems that much older games like KOTOR implemented.
Bioshock is basically a simple FPS with incredible art design and a well thought out plot. It was disapointing that the game started out so strong, and the proceeded like a downward spiral, ending on a low note. It just didn’t pack the punch that I wanted it to, and that I thought it was capable of.
That being said, what of this game they call Bioshock? Unless you actually live in a failed underwater dystopia, you probably know that the game’s an incredibly atmospheric FPS. The art design in Bioshock is so good, it’s ridiculous. The entire city was forged, yes forged, in modernist art deco. The designers poured through tracks of music from the 1940’s to find the ones that best fit their game. These tracks play over the city’s PA system between ominous public service announcements. The menu screens play unsettling piano notes as you scroll through them. The amount of detail put into the underwater city of Rapture is ridiculous. I can only imagine a world where every developer combs their environments with 2k’s level of scrutiny. It’s a sunny world.
Bioshock doesn’t really use story and time-based events to railroad the player through a specific level, such as a game like Half-Life 2. Instead, 2k took an approach that’s more like corralling the player. You’re given an objective in a particular section of Rapture, and then you’re free to move about at your leisure until you complete it. You then uncover the story at your own pace. You can also backtrack to previous levels, if you want to pick up extra power-ups, or tie up some loose ends, but it’s not required to do so.
This pacing method is cool, because it makes you actually feel like you’re one of the many crazed, underwater junkies that you find yourself killing. But, that’s not to say the execution is without problems. For one, you’re constantly being sidetracked. And not just, find the key, flip the switch. It’s more like, travel to the opposite side of the city, collect X amount of certain items, then flip the switch, and then it didn’t work so…you get the point. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the overarching objective is never really that complicated that I feel like I shouldn’t have been able to accomplish it and keep playing the game. It’s a discouraging element, because the real meat of the game is parts that make you feel like you’re side tracked from what you’re actually supposed to be doing.
There’s another problem with the miniature sandbox approach; it’s just not a big enough sandbox. The style works great for the first hour or two. After that, things get fairly repetitive. For one, there are only so many different types of enemies. While it’s cool that there’s tons of ways to kill enemies, that’s really all there is to do. Well, technically you can also use hacking to take control of turrets, security robots, and even get deals from vending machines. I enjoyed the hacking minigame, but it was something that occurred so frequently that even it got redundant after awhile.
Boil the game down, you have to get from point A to point B and there are enemies blocking the way. Granted, this is what any action game boils down to, but unlike games like Half Life 2 and Resident Evil 4, there’s nothing that breaks up the pacing in Bioshock. You’re immediate objective is almost always, “kill these enemies.” And fighting each enemy is almost exactly the same as fighting the enemy before it. Even the ominous Big Daddies become boring after awhile. This is especially true due to the fact that there’s no penalty when you die. You simply respawn at one of the overly abundant regeneration tubes. Because of that, there’s no real reason to worry about strategy against the Big Daddies. All you need is enough firepower to kill one and a nearby regeneration tube.
What kept me playing Bioshock was the games atmosphere and impressively well executed story. The tale of the fall of rapture and the tragic lives of its doomed citizens is undoubtetly one of the best plots in a video game, ever. It’s not perfect though. 2k attempted to use a morality based fork in the story to offer multiple endings. The problem is that that all the game really cares about is your attitude towards the creepy little sisters, who are essentially walking power ups. Killing even one of them means that you get the” bad” ending. It just seems archaic when compared with the sort of morality systems that much older games like KOTOR implemented.
Bioshock is basically a simple FPS with incredible art design and a well thought out plot. It was disapointing that the game started out so strong, and the proceeded like a downward spiral, ending on a low note. It just didn’t pack the punch that I wanted it to, and that I thought it was capable of.
2/8/08
Ninja JaJaMaru Kun (NES, Wii Virtual Console) Review
Ninja JaJaMaru Kun is a multi-level platformer, bearing some resemblance to Donkey Kong. There’s essentially only one map, however, which is 4 levels (totaling a single screen) high, and about 2 screens wide. JaJaMaru Kun (henceforth, JJM) can travel from one level to the next by breaking specific bricks and jumping through the resulting gap. He only has two moves: shoot and jump, and he’s not particularly gifted at either of them. Each level is cleared by killing all of the enemies, which is always eight.
The interesting element is that simply bumping into an enemy doesn’t kill JJM. It doesn’t even stun him. The only way to die is to be hit by an enemy projectile, which JJM can deflect with his own shurikens. This makes the game feel much easier than other old school arcade games, but it’s also the game’s most compelling element. JJM can touch enemies without penalty, stun them by jumping on them, and shoot while jumping. This opens the door for some actual, albeit basic, combat strategy. There's a strange, primordial, connection to later games like Zelda II and Warioland. Unfortunately, the ingenuity is spoiled by the fact that all enemies have identical AI, and the only variation in enemy movement involves running left and right.
An ominous bonus stage can be accessed by grabbing the rose petals dropped by the princess. It gives you a chance to finally battle eyepatch dude and rescue the princess. Sadly, this only grants bonus points, and the princess is mysteriously kidnapped upon reaching the next level.
There really isn’t much else to Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. There’s a handful of different backgrounds, including graveyard, palm trees, and the peculiar “shelves” stage. The enemy sprites are somewhat amusing, ranging from suspiciously normal women to skull men. New enemy types are introduced one at a time, with each type being a sort of archaic mini-boss. It’s important to note that Ninja JaJaMaru Kun observes the law of ninja. When there is only one of a certain type of ninja in a stage, that ninja has significantly better AI than if there are multiple sprites of the same type.
Literally, the only other gameplay element to mention is the admitedly diverse selection of power-ups. JJM can turn invisible, become invincible, or get a speed boost (which is actually just a framerate increase that hurts my eyes to watch.) Obtaining all power-ups will unleash a giant psychedelic death frog that JJM can ride around on, devouring anyone in his path. I can’t help but enjoy riding a death frog. I think all games should have death frogs.
And that’s it. You repeat a 20 some stage cycle until you finally die. There’s only two audio tracks, the normal stage music and the bonus stage music. They don’t hurt my brain, but they’re certainly not good enough to listen to for any extended playing of Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. Really the whole game feels that way. I can’t really recommend it, even to arcade enthusiasts. More notable retro classics can offer similar experiences with better execution.
I’m ashamed to say, though, that I keep playing Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. I won’t admit that I like it, but there’s a mind numbing hypnosis to simplistic combat endlessly repeated to a 40 second loop of music. I also enjoy olive green background screens.
The interesting element is that simply bumping into an enemy doesn’t kill JJM. It doesn’t even stun him. The only way to die is to be hit by an enemy projectile, which JJM can deflect with his own shurikens. This makes the game feel much easier than other old school arcade games, but it’s also the game’s most compelling element. JJM can touch enemies without penalty, stun them by jumping on them, and shoot while jumping. This opens the door for some actual, albeit basic, combat strategy. There's a strange, primordial, connection to later games like Zelda II and Warioland. Unfortunately, the ingenuity is spoiled by the fact that all enemies have identical AI, and the only variation in enemy movement involves running left and right.
An ominous bonus stage can be accessed by grabbing the rose petals dropped by the princess. It gives you a chance to finally battle eyepatch dude and rescue the princess. Sadly, this only grants bonus points, and the princess is mysteriously kidnapped upon reaching the next level.
There really isn’t much else to Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. There’s a handful of different backgrounds, including graveyard, palm trees, and the peculiar “shelves” stage. The enemy sprites are somewhat amusing, ranging from suspiciously normal women to skull men. New enemy types are introduced one at a time, with each type being a sort of archaic mini-boss. It’s important to note that Ninja JaJaMaru Kun observes the law of ninja. When there is only one of a certain type of ninja in a stage, that ninja has significantly better AI than if there are multiple sprites of the same type.
Literally, the only other gameplay element to mention is the admitedly diverse selection of power-ups. JJM can turn invisible, become invincible, or get a speed boost (which is actually just a framerate increase that hurts my eyes to watch.) Obtaining all power-ups will unleash a giant psychedelic death frog that JJM can ride around on, devouring anyone in his path. I can’t help but enjoy riding a death frog. I think all games should have death frogs.
And that’s it. You repeat a 20 some stage cycle until you finally die. There’s only two audio tracks, the normal stage music and the bonus stage music. They don’t hurt my brain, but they’re certainly not good enough to listen to for any extended playing of Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. Really the whole game feels that way. I can’t really recommend it, even to arcade enthusiasts. More notable retro classics can offer similar experiences with better execution.
I’m ashamed to say, though, that I keep playing Ninja JaJaMaru Kun. I won’t admit that I like it, but there’s a mind numbing hypnosis to simplistic combat endlessly repeated to a 40 second loop of music. I also enjoy olive green background screens.
2/7/08
No More Heroes (Wii) Review
No More Heroes is definitely a unique offering for Wii owners. The concept seems odd at first: a man who bears more than a striking resemblance to Johnny Knoxville, and happens to be a fan of Japanese Anime, purchases a light saber (or beam katana, for legal reasons) on an internet auction and decides to become a professional assassin. He then seeks out the lairs of the ten assassin’s who are ranked better than him by the game’s arbitrary ranking association, and kills them.
The game's brief intro tells the player that much and then thrusts Travis into the first “dungeon.” I use the term loosely because, to me, “dungeon” connotates exploration, puzzle solving, and turn based battles. In contrast, NMH’s dungeons involve killing masses of enemies in real time, playing the occasional minigame, and then fighting a boss. It all feels more like Final Fight than Final Fantasy. The execution is simple, but fun. A is for attacking, you can change your stance by raising or lowering the remote, and when an enemy dies you are prompted to swing the wii remote in a random direction to deliver a death blow. These death blows can kill multiple enemies and result in satisfying fountains of blood and coins. If you get tired of swordplay, the B button in conjunction with some wii remote movements allows you to perform a variety of over the top wrestling moves. The use of the motion sensor isn’t perfect, but it works well enough to never signifigantly interrupt gameplay. In spite of the simplicity, there’s enough variation and challenge involved to keep you on your toes, especially during boss fights.
The combat and these “dungeons” form the core of NMH game play, and they are undeniably fun. There is, however, plenty of strawberry on the shortcake, so to speak. Between assassinations Travis is free to cruise around the city of Santa Destroy on his gigantic motorcycle. This motorcycle is the only vehicle you have access to and is the worst part of the game. It handles like a Best Western and has the sort of hit detection that I would criticize in a Nintendo 64 game. It is quite likely that you will find your bike stuck on a pole at least once during a play through of NMH. Luckily, the motorcycle is only for transportation around Santa Destroy, and with a little finesse and a lot of power sliding, it can be mastered, somewhat.
Santa Destroy is, unfortunately, underdeveloped compared to a city in a free roaming series like GTA. The city is little more than a hub for the player to access various shops and side missions. That’s not to say Santa Destroy isn’t an interesting element, though. If you want to increase your stats, you head to the gym for some wii remote waggling minigames. To learn new wrestling moves, you need to rent old wrestling videos. You can take on jobs at the temp agency which amount to playing motion sensor oriented minigames such as lawn mowing. There’s also an advertising agency that offers short side missions that basically involve killing lots of guys within a time limit, with the occasional stipulation. The strangest distraction involves finding a drunken Russian basketball coach’s lost balls in exchange for new special moves.
These side quests are sweet but short. Maybe a bit too short. Some last less than a minute, and the longest don’t exceed five minutes. It’s obvious that they exist only to break up the pacing between killing the other assassins, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What I do find bothersome is that every time you beat a mission, or if you fail a mission, you have to drive all the way back to the place where you got the mission from to take on another mission or to take another stab at the same mission. Since driving isn’t very fun, this just feels redundant.
It's worth noting that the art design is excellent. Particularely, Grasshoppers trademark empty landscapes, broken comic book dialog boxes, and bosses with individual and over the top art styles really stand out. There's a consistent illustrated feel throughout the game, and while the cell shaded graphics may not have the polygon count gamers are used to, they're nice to look at on my old RCA tube. A downside is that with componant cables and an HDTV, the textures can become overemphasized and look weird.
All in all, though, NMH is a solid package. The combat is fun, and there’s enough new swords, new missions, new shirts, and new game play elements to keep you keep interested. And just when you think the newness is about to wear off, the game ends. It’s short by modern standards, but there’s really no dull moments. The plot is bizarre, but humorous, the whole way through and offers a satisfying conclusion that won’t leave you scratching your head. NMH is basically an inside joke for people who grew up playing Mega Man and watching Voltron. It’s also the best single player experience on the Wii yet.
The game's brief intro tells the player that much and then thrusts Travis into the first “dungeon.” I use the term loosely because, to me, “dungeon” connotates exploration, puzzle solving, and turn based battles. In contrast, NMH’s dungeons involve killing masses of enemies in real time, playing the occasional minigame, and then fighting a boss. It all feels more like Final Fight than Final Fantasy. The execution is simple, but fun. A is for attacking, you can change your stance by raising or lowering the remote, and when an enemy dies you are prompted to swing the wii remote in a random direction to deliver a death blow. These death blows can kill multiple enemies and result in satisfying fountains of blood and coins. If you get tired of swordplay, the B button in conjunction with some wii remote movements allows you to perform a variety of over the top wrestling moves. The use of the motion sensor isn’t perfect, but it works well enough to never signifigantly interrupt gameplay. In spite of the simplicity, there’s enough variation and challenge involved to keep you on your toes, especially during boss fights.
The combat and these “dungeons” form the core of NMH game play, and they are undeniably fun. There is, however, plenty of strawberry on the shortcake, so to speak. Between assassinations Travis is free to cruise around the city of Santa Destroy on his gigantic motorcycle. This motorcycle is the only vehicle you have access to and is the worst part of the game. It handles like a Best Western and has the sort of hit detection that I would criticize in a Nintendo 64 game. It is quite likely that you will find your bike stuck on a pole at least once during a play through of NMH. Luckily, the motorcycle is only for transportation around Santa Destroy, and with a little finesse and a lot of power sliding, it can be mastered, somewhat.
Santa Destroy is, unfortunately, underdeveloped compared to a city in a free roaming series like GTA. The city is little more than a hub for the player to access various shops and side missions. That’s not to say Santa Destroy isn’t an interesting element, though. If you want to increase your stats, you head to the gym for some wii remote waggling minigames. To learn new wrestling moves, you need to rent old wrestling videos. You can take on jobs at the temp agency which amount to playing motion sensor oriented minigames such as lawn mowing. There’s also an advertising agency that offers short side missions that basically involve killing lots of guys within a time limit, with the occasional stipulation. The strangest distraction involves finding a drunken Russian basketball coach’s lost balls in exchange for new special moves.
These side quests are sweet but short. Maybe a bit too short. Some last less than a minute, and the longest don’t exceed five minutes. It’s obvious that they exist only to break up the pacing between killing the other assassins, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What I do find bothersome is that every time you beat a mission, or if you fail a mission, you have to drive all the way back to the place where you got the mission from to take on another mission or to take another stab at the same mission. Since driving isn’t very fun, this just feels redundant.
It's worth noting that the art design is excellent. Particularely, Grasshoppers trademark empty landscapes, broken comic book dialog boxes, and bosses with individual and over the top art styles really stand out. There's a consistent illustrated feel throughout the game, and while the cell shaded graphics may not have the polygon count gamers are used to, they're nice to look at on my old RCA tube. A downside is that with componant cables and an HDTV, the textures can become overemphasized and look weird.
All in all, though, NMH is a solid package. The combat is fun, and there’s enough new swords, new missions, new shirts, and new game play elements to keep you keep interested. And just when you think the newness is about to wear off, the game ends. It’s short by modern standards, but there’s really no dull moments. The plot is bizarre, but humorous, the whole way through and offers a satisfying conclusion that won’t leave you scratching your head. NMH is basically an inside joke for people who grew up playing Mega Man and watching Voltron. It’s also the best single player experience on the Wii yet.
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) Review
Dracula X Chronicles is essentially a three prong deal: the PSP remake of Rondo of Blood, the original PC Engine Rondo of Blood, and an updated (but not abridged) Symphony of the Night. There's also some extra mini-game goodness, such as the obligatory boss rush mode.
The remake of Rondo is, for the most part, true to the original. The enemies have been slowed a bit for our modern fingers, and there's some extra goodies hidden in the levels, but the game play rings true. That being said, the game is hard. I've heard the argument that people don't play games this hard anymore, but I don't really agree. The VC and X-Box arcade sales are solid. Games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden do very well in the market. American gamers have proven our selves a masochistic lot.
However, the method doesn't always justify the means. Richter (our blue coated protagonist) is laughably under equipped compared to other recent castle goers. Even Castlevania 3 for NES offered more modern controls, and more upgrades and abilities. Richter still has to press up if he wants to go up stairs, he still drops like a brick, he flies almost a screen length backwards when hit, his whip is limited to horizontal attacks, there's no whip upgrades, and the standard double jump is replaced with a strange double back flip. On top of Richter's general awkwardness, the enemies are arranged brutally: you will find yourself being knocked back into spikes, pits, and other deadly situations. Unless you are the Castlevania master, you will die and have to replay portions of levels over and over, learning the proper strategy for each situation. This kind of game design was becoming outdated even at the time of Rondo's PC engine release, and the decision to not update the game play probably hinges on a key factor: the game is still good, despite its flaws. The level design, the music (re-arranged beautifully), the dramatic boss fights (digging pretty much all the skeletons out of the classical horror closet), and the sometimes sheer wackiness (skeletons swinging from vines in jungle trees, anyone?) all combine to build a solid game. Could they have made it more playable by modern standards? Yes. But would it still have been Rondo? Who could say? It was an artistic decision to preserve the original game play, and not everyone is going to agree it was for the better.
The only other topic with Rondo's remake is its graphics. The polygons are certainly something to look at; Konami is squeezing out PS2 quality stuff and somehow keeping the frame rate consistent. There's also a nice sprinkling of dramatic cut scenes with equally dramatic voice acting. These usually take the form of boss intros, are fairly concise, and for the most part enjoyable. The voice acting isn't going to change the way you think about anything, but it's how I imagine a man slowly walking into a castle to fight an ancient vampire would talk. For the purists, the Japanese voice tracks have been included as well.
The original Rondo (which, along with SOTN, is unfortunately a hidden unlockable) is everything you'd expect from a PC Engine classic. It's a bit tougher than its PSP counterpart, and you get the original graphics and music. It's a bonus gift from the developers for the fans of the series.
The essential 'other half' of the game, SOTN, is also here in full force. While it's a bummer that you can't play it out of the box (Chronicles is marketed as being a collection of both games) it's still awesome that its here. I could go in depth here about why SOTN is a great game: there's the air-tight controls, the 10 years old and still innovative level design, the great music, the massive re-playability (an inverted castle, 3 bonus characters, and lord knows how many endings, ect.) but the game really needs no indroduction. The only downside is that it's running on a software emulator, so you're likely to encounter some glitches. All that's new is the English voice tracks, and they're on par with Rondo's new voice work.
At the end of the day what Konami is presenting us with is a labor of love. They didn't have to put symphony and Rondo on the same UMD, and they would've made more money selling them separate. They didn't have to pay for the Japanese voice tracks, or pay for new voice acting in SOTN, either. They didn't want to change Rondo's gameplay to make the game easy, because they wanted people to re-experience a classic game, not play a potential watered down crap-fest. Could they have at least included an ‘easy mode'? Maybe. But this is Castlevania, and Dracula's Castle is not for the weak of heart.
The remake of Rondo is, for the most part, true to the original. The enemies have been slowed a bit for our modern fingers, and there's some extra goodies hidden in the levels, but the game play rings true. That being said, the game is hard. I've heard the argument that people don't play games this hard anymore, but I don't really agree. The VC and X-Box arcade sales are solid. Games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden do very well in the market. American gamers have proven our selves a masochistic lot.
However, the method doesn't always justify the means. Richter (our blue coated protagonist) is laughably under equipped compared to other recent castle goers. Even Castlevania 3 for NES offered more modern controls, and more upgrades and abilities. Richter still has to press up if he wants to go up stairs, he still drops like a brick, he flies almost a screen length backwards when hit, his whip is limited to horizontal attacks, there's no whip upgrades, and the standard double jump is replaced with a strange double back flip. On top of Richter's general awkwardness, the enemies are arranged brutally: you will find yourself being knocked back into spikes, pits, and other deadly situations. Unless you are the Castlevania master, you will die and have to replay portions of levels over and over, learning the proper strategy for each situation. This kind of game design was becoming outdated even at the time of Rondo's PC engine release, and the decision to not update the game play probably hinges on a key factor: the game is still good, despite its flaws. The level design, the music (re-arranged beautifully), the dramatic boss fights (digging pretty much all the skeletons out of the classical horror closet), and the sometimes sheer wackiness (skeletons swinging from vines in jungle trees, anyone?) all combine to build a solid game. Could they have made it more playable by modern standards? Yes. But would it still have been Rondo? Who could say? It was an artistic decision to preserve the original game play, and not everyone is going to agree it was for the better.
The only other topic with Rondo's remake is its graphics. The polygons are certainly something to look at; Konami is squeezing out PS2 quality stuff and somehow keeping the frame rate consistent. There's also a nice sprinkling of dramatic cut scenes with equally dramatic voice acting. These usually take the form of boss intros, are fairly concise, and for the most part enjoyable. The voice acting isn't going to change the way you think about anything, but it's how I imagine a man slowly walking into a castle to fight an ancient vampire would talk. For the purists, the Japanese voice tracks have been included as well.
The original Rondo (which, along with SOTN, is unfortunately a hidden unlockable) is everything you'd expect from a PC Engine classic. It's a bit tougher than its PSP counterpart, and you get the original graphics and music. It's a bonus gift from the developers for the fans of the series.
The essential 'other half' of the game, SOTN, is also here in full force. While it's a bummer that you can't play it out of the box (Chronicles is marketed as being a collection of both games) it's still awesome that its here. I could go in depth here about why SOTN is a great game: there's the air-tight controls, the 10 years old and still innovative level design, the great music, the massive re-playability (an inverted castle, 3 bonus characters, and lord knows how many endings, ect.) but the game really needs no indroduction. The only downside is that it's running on a software emulator, so you're likely to encounter some glitches. All that's new is the English voice tracks, and they're on par with Rondo's new voice work.
At the end of the day what Konami is presenting us with is a labor of love. They didn't have to put symphony and Rondo on the same UMD, and they would've made more money selling them separate. They didn't have to pay for the Japanese voice tracks, or pay for new voice acting in SOTN, either. They didn't want to change Rondo's gameplay to make the game easy, because they wanted people to re-experience a classic game, not play a potential watered down crap-fest. Could they have at least included an ‘easy mode'? Maybe. But this is Castlevania, and Dracula's Castle is not for the weak of heart.
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