Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 Review

I only played the single player for this game and while I am sure this game was never meant to be played for that, I will admit that for a fighting game campaign, I found it a lot more compelling than I initally thought going in. This game is easily the most nuanced and indepth anime arena fighter ever created. There's lots of little stuff to the combat that most arena fighters of this kind don't really have and this game is easily the most refined of all Tenkaichi games. You can play a distance game with ki blasts and energy moves or you could try to play up close and personal, or you can dash around and knock your enemies down. The infamous Dragon Ball trope of, "waiting for your enemy to power up" actually serves as a decent risk reward system where if you power up, your opponent can get a free hit in on you and combo but if you let them power up and do energy blasts and dodge out of the way, you can drain their ki energy much quicker and you can either go in up close or try to nail them with your energy blasts. It's the kind decision making that I am surprised an anime arena fighter like this even has. To add to all this every attack can be teleported out of the way or blocked, well most attacks can be blocks but back to the decision making I said earlier, unblockable attacks take a while to be charged up and you can dodge them if you time your dashes right. There is also smaller naunces to fighting that I don't know but would take take too long to describe. I consider myself to be a casual fighting game player and at best but BT3's combat and mechanics feel rather impressive AND it's faithful to the series it's based on is icing on the cake. There is a reason why this game has a competitive scene.

I mentioned the campaign before, and I think it is one of the more interesting fighting game campaigns in terms of how the game uses it's mechanics to recreate key story moments from the show. This is probably the closest thing to a fighting game campaign being scripted but it's done well here. When the characters are getting beat up, the game tends to give you the illusion you are fighting a hopeless battle by lowering your HP compared to the enemy and your damage output but when you are winning, the game will let you transform or switch character and you will be beating up the character you were previously losing against. It's a rather clever way of recreating the dire moments of the show. During fights where the villain wins, you will play as that villain in that Saga instead like Frieza and Cell, which is surprisingly a decent way to incorporate the fights where the villain wins but not have it be where the hero wins in gameplay but in the story, he loses. There is also moments where you do a beam struggle or when a character is scripted to do a special attack to win the fight but it feels earned since some of these fights can be kind of long. My only big issue with this story mode is that the game is faithful to the story of DB 70% of the time. There are some major parts that get skipped over and some of the fights never actually happened in the series. That and the story mode can start to get samey after a while when playing it for a few hours since it's scripted arena fight after scripted arena fight but the game ends before the fatigue starts to set in.

Overall, I haven't played this game in over a decade and surprisingly enough, the game holds up and is one of the better if not the best anime arena fighter ever made. I really do get why this game has the cult following it has.

Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy Review

This might just be the strangest anime Dragon Ball has ever produced. There's no overarching bad guy, there is no large save the world threat, there is no over the top fights, there is no training. Basically everything you ever assiociated Dragon Ball with especially from King Piccolo Saga and onwards is pretty much not here, and it is easy to bash the movie for that, I do think if you look at it's own merits and as a standalone story, it's surprisingly compelling. It's impressive what they managed to pull off in less than an hour, and it's not your typical DB movie fare of a big bad guy showing up, they fight for 30-40 minutes and it's over, this movie has as much story to it's bone as Wrath of the Dragon did only without the action and large scale stakes.

What makes the movie interesting on it's own is that it feels like a decent kids fairy tale adventure movie and the film is quite comitted to telling that story. Goku Jr. starts off as a scared naive kid but slowly throughout the movie, he starts to stand up for himself and grows a backbone. Sure, none of this is super amazing but for is esstentially "kids fairy tale movie Dragon Ball Edition", this works pretty well. Ironically, Dragon Ball started off as that so this movie in a sense is the story coming full circle. It start on Mount Poazu and it feels rather poetic that Goku Jr. learns about his grandfather on the very same place the DB story started. It surprisingingly feels "grounded" and personal for a Dragon Ball story since it's about Goku Jr. trying to help his dying grandma and it's about Goku Jr. trying to possibly grow up without her. Other positives include Pan being more of an interesting character being someone Goku Jr. aspires to be and Puck was surprisingly well done for a generic bully character, there was more depth to him that I was expecting there to be. Not only that but some of the morals the movie brings to the table like, "don't trust nice people" is rather deep for what is esstentially a story written for kids.

Some negatives is that Puck somehow surviving the fall felt really forced and felt like the movie needed to end on a happy note, and it was never explained how Pan was able to survive her medical problems. The villains were also rather one note too, and they don't have any charisma or overly abusing the worf effect like past DB villains did. I get that the story is not about them but a good villain tends to elevate a story for me.

Overall, for a movie I don't remember much despite renting it from Blockbuster a lot, I found it a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be. I can even sort of reccomend this movie to those who never liked Dragon Ball at all since it is far removed from everything the series did from King Piccolo and onwards.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Review

Playing this game after playing both the PS1 games and Frontline and also playing the CoD games is a rather peculiar experience. Playing the first 2 missions of AA was really nice and the improvements felt noticeable right away. Mouse aim, WASD controls, quick selecting, bigger levels, no short draw distance and all of this felt really great. It geniunely felt like an evolution over what in the PS1 games. The 2nd mission in particular where start off in a snowy empty area sniping enemies from afar and then all the way to end where you sink a U Boat and the escape might just be the greatest Medal of Honor mission ever. Then the Omaha Beach level happens and I am going to be honest and say that I never got the hype for this mission at all. There could be something I am missing but trying to avoid the bullets firing at you felt impossible and I could never get the rules down for this sequences at all. I was stuck on this level for hours because I could never figure out what I was supposed to do to avoid or minimize damage. It's one of the most frustrating levels I have ever played in a video game. The Omaha Beach level felt less frustrating in Frontline since there were health packs litered all over the level.

Luckily the game does get much better from there, but I won't deny that these parts parts of the game feel less like PS1 MoH and Frontline and feel more like a precursor to what you would find in CoD. I won't deny that the increased enemy count does make more exhilirating and fast paced fire fights compared to the smaller skirmshes in the PS1 MoHs but at the same time, I did really wish the game gave me the ability to hold medkits considering so much of the game's challenge comes from getting ambushed by hitscan weapons. So as a result so much of the game can feel like quicksaving, get hit, memorize enemy locations, and quickload to minimize damage until you reach the next medkit or pickup a health drink. I still think the level design is solid and the one man army doing everything is approach does make for interesting level design than the scripted nature of CoD but I really did wish the game allowed me to store medkits or drinks for later use like the later game in the series European Assault would since hitscan is something you can't reliably avoid. This is actually later CoDs kind of circumvents with regen health but that has it's own issues. Other issues include how stealth could've been better handled, I did wish the game gave you a better sense of awareness when dealing with the line of sight of enemies since it can get inconsistent. Something I can surely say later CoD games did better. The silenced pistol is also satisfying to get headshots with all though also inconsistent. I also don't like how the game seems to break it's own rules regarding alarms. During the stealth parts, you can turn off alarms after they are triggered to avoid having enemies spawn, but during the mandatory sequences where you will get caught, you can turn off the alarm and then it will become raised 10 seconds later, I am not a big fan of this but this system seems to be introduced late game so I can sort of forgive it and I don't mind this as much as forced action parts in actual stealth games.

The weapon feel and enemy damage animations all do a decent enough job even if this is something the PS1 games and Frontline kind of did better since enemies were more expressive on where they got shot in the body.

Overall, MoH AA is still a solid game but it can be rough around the edges at times. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is still the best WW2 fps but this game is at least a good 2nd or 3rd.

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

Cyberpunk 2077 is not the bad game that I was lead to believe at the time of launch nor was it the "good" game with a redemption arc like I was also lead to believe. I consider the game to be about as "6 out of 10" as it gets. I don't consider that to be bad, it's actually kind of a complement coming from me but at the same time, the best way of describing Cyberpunk that it's an incredibly confused game in every respect. I'll start with the story and then start going into detail as to why the gameplay, while better than Witcher 3's still isn't amazing.

The story and writing is solid enough and gets better and more engaging when Johnny Silverhand is introduced, V and Johnny's dynamic with each other is my favorite aspect of the story. Keanu Reeves' performance gives the latter character a lot of likeablity and charisma to him which makes sense considering his portrayal in the story. The story overall, is your typical Cyberpunk fare but I do like how your perspective is constantly in first person and you only ever see your character's face in reflections making the story feel more intimate and connected if the game were to use cutscenes and seeing the character's model constantly. The other characters are decently written enough but one big issue I have with the story that can be detracting is how much major story beats are covered in side missions, while I get Cyberpunk being a game and an open world one at that, I find this design choice questionable especially for a game where the story and writing is it's major selling point. It's possible for the player to miss on major parts regarding the fate of characters and parts in the story that would be important in a show or movie is just skippable, and I doubt everyone playing is going to touch some of these quests. The epilogue was also a bit too long for my tastes but that is fine considering not many RPGs or games let you have a fully playable epilogue to show your choices. Does the story live up to the hype? I say mostly it does. Other issues include Yorinobu and Adam Smasher feeling underdeveloped as villains but you could argue the villain is V's illness.

Now the gameplay, while the core systems are fine and functional, there are major issues with it. The best way of describing this game is that it feels like Frankenstein's monster. It's basically part Telltale game, part Borderlands, part CoD and Half Life 2, part GTA and Saints Row, part Deus Ex, and is and feels like a WRPG maybe 30% of the time. While the game's marketing made it seem like a GTA style game where your choices "mattered" that is all smoke and mirrors. I don't think the game is bad for this, I mainly think the game is jack of all trades but master of none. The early hours of the game makes you think you are playing a Telltale game meets CoD but then about the start of Act 2, the open world becomes avaliable and it can feel jarring compared to the earlier parts of the game. The Ghost Town mission where you pay Rogue upfront can particularly jarring since you have to start exploring the open world game even though it's easy to think that it was a linear game before that. The stealth is decent enough, but doesn't feel as good as the Edios Montreal Deus Ex games since the latter has better level design and bottlenecks you less while having better hacking systems and more non lethal options, shooting admittedly feels better than Borderlands, but the looter shooter elements can get in the way of what is pretty good feeling combat because low level guns can take forever to kill enemies especially when they are higher levelled than you. Having the vehicles of GTA and Saints Row can feel out of place with CoD and Half Life 2 nature of the mission design considering in GTA and Saints Row you have to worry about vehicle damage and escourting NPCs and car chases, which a lot of the stuff is scripted in this game due to the game design clashing with the scripted nature of CoD and HL2. This is geniunely what I mean with Cyberpunk's frankenstein's monster design. Some of it can be good like the stealth and shooting but have elements from other games that clashes with each other.

Overall, Cyberpunk is not bad or good, it's just somewhere inbetween, I do kind of reccomend this game to people who didn't like games like Witcher 3 since the combat in CP2077 is better and the frankenstein's monster style of design means the game can be more engaging than, "talking, awkward movement controls exploration gameplay and bad combat". Don't expect a masterpiece and you'll like it to varying degrees.

God of War: Ragnarok Review

And here it is the last God of War game in the series thus far and the long awaited follow up to the 2018 game? I really enjoyed the 2018 a lot more than I thought I was going to upon revisiting it and how does Ragnarok fare? Well, despite some issues, I think Ragnarok improves the 2018 in almost if not every way. I'll start with the good:

The story and writing is much better than the last game, where I felt the 2018 game had solid writing, here it's much more fleshed out and interesting characters like Freya, Brok, Sindri, and Mimir who were mostly decent in the 2018 game are much more fleshed out and interesting here, all of them having their own subplots and goals throughout the story. Where in 2018, they didn't have a whole lot to do outside of Freya and her relationship with Baldur, here it's much more expanded upon. Sindri and Brok's dynamic have more going on, Freya has a surprisinginly convincing face turn, and Mimir is given more humanity despite him always being entertaining. The writing with Kratos and Atreus is also good but more so with Kratos, all though the trasition between God of War 3 to 2018 should've been smoother, Kratos in general feels like a character who is trying his hardest to avoid the mistakes of his past and he can be a bit passive at times early game, if you play the older games and 2018, it's easy to understand Kratos plight and see why he acts the way he does when it comes to avoiding past mistakes and how that shape his world view. Atreus' is a decent enough, his writing isn't as good as Kratos', his sections do a good job at fleshing out the game's antagonists like Thor, his family and Odin, and Atreus himself goes through an interesting journey of self discovery despite his writing not being as interesting as Kratos due to not having nearly as much history and attachment as Kratos does. The gameplay is also improved, the amazing gamefeel is back, every strike, every kill animation, every slam and everything you do has a ton of weight to it. The RPG elements which was overly complicated and had a bunch of useless stats in the 2018 game is much better here in that all you need to focus on is attack and defense and the rest like cooldown, and vitality is up to you. Comparing stats is down much better here since the menu for comparing them is much more streamlined by comparison. You will also be switching between the 3 weapons you have more than I thought you would. Axe for singular enemies, Blades of Chaos for multiple, and the Spear for more of an intbetween and puzzles. Spartan Rage has more depth too, choosing between doing more damage or getting health back and I also like how the accessiblity menu allows you to automatically pickup items which while not as good as having health orbs being magnetized to Kratos after enemies are killed still works well enough since I don't have to worry about pressing a button to activate a healing stone. That and enemies get stunned briefly upon activating a healing stone makes it more efficent to run in and activate a stone. The Atreus sections while a bit overly hated from what I have seen does do an okay job at breaking up the pace gameplay wise, they remind of the Kai sections from Heavenly Sword and I do like the third person shooter feel of the gameplay since the over the shoulder was originally used more for those kinds of games, so shooting gameplay feels at home here. The takedown animations with Atreus aren't as good. Which now gets me to the bad. 

Now, I'll transition to the bad. The pacing can get a bit uneven, and there can be a few too many walking sections especially during the Lost Sanuctary level but it later on starts to get more evenly paced. I still get a bit annoyed getting attack offscreen due to the third person over shoulder camera not being able to see everything around me and the indicators while generally being fine and allies telling you when to dodge works well it, the game can still occasionally feel cheap. The puzzles and the characters yelling out the solution can be an irritation since they will yell out the solution before you even get to think about it. Kratos can also be a bit too passive at times early game but it does to get better later when he starts to take charge more. 

Overall, Ragnarok I feel is a great game and if the GOW series ended here, I wouldn't mind, it's a high note to end on. 

86 Part 2 Review

This season was pretty solid like the show has been thus far and I feel like this season might actually get a review out of me since I find it really fascinating. I'll start with the good, the character of Shinei and his crew and the relationship they is pretty well done, I like how this season starts off with them choosing to have a normal life after all they went through in the past season but then they realized that isn't what they want and they would rather fight along side other people in the war which is I think is great writing since it gives the characters some great introspection. Shinei in general is a protagonist I really do enjoy and him trying to find his purpose as to why he goes on fighting and realizing that his friends and the character of Vladilena Milize are the reasons why does a great job at tying the first season into the 2nd. The penultimate episode with the first season's ED playing in the background really was impactful. Shinei's whole arc of finding something to fight for was executed very well and I have a soft spot for stories like that.

So after all this praise, why do I give it a 7? Honestly, I feel like 86 Season 2 is a good season that could be great but is held back by one major issue and that is the character of Vladilena Milize. She was a decent enough character in the first season where she was the naive optimist that gave the 86 crew a reason to live and not throw their lives away but at the same time, even then her writing started to go downhill the moment she out of nowhere become a schemer that tricked Annette into helping her after the latter casting away their friendship. That transition felt really unnatural and her writing from then on hasn't really gotten better. After that she forms a new bond with a new crew of 86, is a decorated military commander of sorts earning the nickname "Bloody Regina", is much more confident, survives the Republic from getting anhhilated and conviently helps Shinei during his final battle as somewhat of a deus ex machina of sorts, patches up her relationship with Annette, was able to hold off the Legion for a while and her Uncle dies. What is all of this have in common? All of this was never properly shown on screen with much development, all of it felt rushed and really unnatural due to the lack of seeing this on screen. It felt like 86 Season 2, would've greatly benefitted from having a couple of episodes from her perspective and that would greatly fix everything. Some other issues include Fredierica being an annoying child character that felt like the producers mandated there should be a child character in the show and she feels out of place with how war torn and high stakes the setting feels and the season also has another underwhelming villain who this time around just screams, "I'll kill you a lot". There is some flashbacks with him, I guess and his relationship with Frederica and his connection to Shinei but I found it all underwhelming due his only character only showing any kind of character through excess shouting and that's it.

Overall, it may sound like I am ragging on this season a lot, I did enjoy it but it was held back by some rather strange flaws that could've been avoided if it just had more episodes to flesh out certain aspects. I still feel like the Legend of the Galactic Heroes remake is the best modern anime going today, but I am willing to watch more of this series, which is high praise coming from me.

Short Game Reviews: December 2022

SOCOM 2:

SOCOM 2 was a really interesting game to play. It's a good game with some refinements could be a great game. The level design is solid, and it's pretty cool how much it even allows for stealth. My big gripe is that there is no visiblity indicator, despite there apparently being a darkness system, it was hard to tell if I was hidden in the dark. That and it's cool that different surfaces can make certain sounds but this could also have more feedback. CoD MW 2019 really feels like it refines what this game did mechanically. It also has that objective style exploration level design and level extractions. For a game that was driven by it's multiplayer, the single player here surprisingly isn't as afterthought at all. There's exploration, stealth and the guns feel satisfying to shoot. The context senstive actions can kind of make it hard to tell what you can and cannot interact with, and that can lead to some confusion and the AI can get caught in places and don't follow you as much as you should, and sometimes it's hard to tell what you can do next like in mission 1 where you have to recon the patrols and mission 9 where it's hard to tell how the hell you were supposed to make the chopper land and extract. That and I wish I got to interact with sqaud commands more but this could be because I played on easy, but at the same time the game just seems too slow if I played on higher difficulties. This was a solid campaign for a game and series known for multiplayer.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks:

MK Shaolin Monks was a good time, I am not big MK or fighting game player who would've thought if you kept the base MK moveset with Liu Kang and Kung Lao and make it into a brawler, it would actually be my favorite game in the series. I call it that since this game is more of a style of game I enjoy.

The combat feels satisfying and while many combos go unused like many game in the genre, the speical move like Fire Balls and Liu Kang's Bicycle Kick feel rewarding to pull in this context. Platforming generally feels fine if not always refined, and the parts where you have to do the "test your might" mashing can really go screw themselves and the final level being a massive difficulty spike with it being a boss rush with no checkpoints or health refills. But other than those issues, the game is very compelling. I wasn't even expecting Prince of Persia style platforming or even lite metroidvania elements in a game like but the game has it and is all the more compelling for it since it gives the game more than just being a "brawler in the MK universe". MK's excessive violence also shines through with enviromental takedowns in which there are plentiful in this game all though my only issue with them is that they do not reward health if you use them which can feel discouraging since only killing enemies using hand to hand combat and weapons reward health.

The bosses are okay overall, do the role of changing things up. The writing is also just there and the voice acting isn't that great, but overall, this game lives up to it's name as being a hidden gem, a good spinoff game and a game really deserving of some kind of sequel. I wouldn't mind if Neatherrealm tried to make the story mode of the latest MK game something along the lines of this even if it would be harder for them to do.

Super Mario Sunshine:

I prefer it over Super Mario 64 but only because you can control the camera with the right stick. FLUDD is cool but the parts where the game takes it away from you tend to be ungodly frustrating due to the fact that you have been using it so much and then the game randomly decides to take it away from you and then the unpolished nature of the platforming really starts to rear it's ugly head. The space levels without FLUDD are so difficuly and I don't even think I can do them without save states. The last space level felt like you needed luck to complete due to the fact it's hard to tell where you will actually get thrown. With FLUDD, I do like the more varied moveset you get but trying to play with the pressure sensitive R button was a pain in the ass, and aiming it was also a pain in the ass since using third person, or over the shoulder wasn't as accurate as the game wants you to be. The game's camera can also be a big issue at times, and it really got fixed with Mario Galaxy.

I didn't find Isle Delfino as bad as some make it out to be but that is because I never got a game over due to the above mentioned save states. The level design is decent and I felt it got better the more it went on, and the Harbour level being the worst designed of the bunch due it's overly vertical nature of it. I do find it interesting how this Mario makes you use the moving curve jump more than anyother game.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I had many frustrations with it along the way.

Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth:

It's pretty good as far as SOTN styled metroidvanias are concerned and one of the better licensed anime game ever made. If Record of Lodoss War can count as an anime franchise. It's pretty on the nose with how much it borrows from SOTN, super on the nose. I don't mind but at the same time it reminds me why SOTN styled metroidvanias can never be masterpieces to me. So much of the secrets in the game revolve around getting items that you don't really need, finding weapons that are already lower levelled than the one you already have, and abilties on top of abilities I barely get much use out of. I always had a soft spot for Deedlit's character design and her english voice in the OVA series and it being a game based on sort of anime franchise that's not a musou game or a arena fighter was enough to make me check it out. I am surprised that it's not a seemlessly connected map and more of a level by level afair that just so happens to take place in the same area. The health regen feature is pretty interesting and it does help mitigate frustration when low on health with a lot of enemies, it can be a life saver. It does help make bosses more interesting and dynamic affairs too since you can be low on health one minute and then you get it back.

Some issues exclusive to the game itself is that enemies can get super damage spongey especially late game, I got a high level weapon like the Chakram at Stage 6 and enemies felt like they were just tanking so many hits and spells. I was starting to get super annoyed but it was near the end game by that point and the game never lasted long enough for it to truely annoy me. The arrow puzzles I found to be kind of grating maybe because of the aiming controls for the bow since it requires precise shots and it's hard to aim it to be consistently precise since the aim can realign itself after some shots. Some of the platforms can be slightly hard to reach sometimes and the story is kind of just there. It felt like it took place in the middle of a much larger narrative rather than feeling something truly standalone, I get this game is a prequel to one of the novels but it doesn't do a good job at having people who know nothing of Record of Lodoss War to be invested in the greater universe of the series, I only understood some of it to due to having vague memories of watching the OVA series years back.

Overall, good SOTN style metroidvania, I prefer Metroid styled games in the genre but this game does the SOTN stand in thing pretty well.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven:

Not a big Jojo fan, got some casual enjoyment for it being a CC2 arena fighter, the campaign was decent with some weird difficulty spikes. I found mashing square, pressing block while enemies or down or just preparing to move out of the way when they are down, and doing special team attacks to be the most viable tactics. The camera was awful as expected with melee based games where you have active camera control in an open 3D space since you need to rotate when chaging your position constantly. The difficulty spikes mainly come from occasionally fighting enemies that have hard hitting attacks, Gyro Zepelli and some of the fights here and there have this. I did find this game lacking in presentation compared to CC2's other licensed games with stiffly animated cutscenes with textboxes and bizzare transitions to FMV sequences. The voice acting also does a good job at selling me on the material despite me not caring about Jojo that much after Part 2.

Overall, barely expected anything out this game since I am not a big Jojo fan but I got mild entertainment value out of it. I got it for cheap and it was a decent, if forgettable time.

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

This game feels like an anomoly for me. It's a Batman game where Batman is barely even the focus at all. Considering how much I have gotten lukewarm on the titular character over the years, having a game where Batman is just more of a starring role rather than the main character was a delight. I also liked how Batman's boring tsundere act was contrasted with the other characters. The writing is also much, much, much better than in Lego Batman 2. It has actually has more of a plot with twists and turns and an actual structure. I also like Braniac and Sinestro so having them be the main villains of this game was nice for me. This game at the very least wasn't chasing Joker and Lex Luthor's mech for 70% the main story. There is also way more supervillain boss fights this time around abit less Batman centric ones but Batman's villains' are overexposed enough as is, so I didn't mind.

The gameplay is still your traditional coop action game escourt quest like it has been before, but the open world from Lego Batman 2 is a lot more downplayed and is more of doing missions to progress the main plot or is selectable from a level select menu which is good since I find lego open worlds boring. I also like how all the suits are slectable as opposed to them being power ups which gives you more random powers and abilites to play around with.

Overall, I never understood why this of all games is considered to be the weakest of the Lego Batman games, lukewarm thoughts on the titular character aside, the open world is more downplayed, and you get more variety of powers and suit abilites due to the different DC characters and all of them being easily selectable.

Cthulhu Saves Christmas:

I wanted to enjoy this game more considering how much I liked Cosmic Star Heroine but the game overall felt like a chore for me to play. A large part in that was how much the game got samey after the first few hours. I don't mind repetitive games but this game is mainly just consisted of dungeon, Christmastown, dungeon and then Christmastown. I wouldn't mind this so much but the game's dungeon design was just bad, so much of it was the same copy and pasted areas over and over again and partner that with the craploads of random encounters makes it easy to lose your bearing on where you last where in the level. I will give this game credit in that after a certain amount of times, the random encounters do eventually stop but I still don't think that saves how copy and pasted the dungeon designs are. It feels like a downgrade from Cosmic Star, and due to this I was relived when I finished the game.

The combat is pretty decent, and I am not even a big fan of turn based combat, I always did like how abilites can't be used more than once unless you recharge and it's about taking advantage of Hyper Mode, all though I eventually turned the game's difficulty down to easy since I am not 100% sure how the ability system worked which, I will admit might be incompetence on my part, but there were times I wished I had access to abilities enemies were weak to but I never had them on me and because of this I think I lost a lot of the nuance the game's combat could've had. All though the random encounters and copy pasted dungeons really didn't help. The writing and story is also decent enough, and some of the jokes can be funny, I also found the characters and the interactions to be charming, I didn't play the original game this title was a prequel to, but I did like how it mocked itself for being a prequel which is a delight for me.

This game was alright, but it's brevity was more so the reason why I finished the game than because I enjoyed playing it.

The Punisher(2005) Game Review

The Volition Punisher game might have the best on screen version of the character ever. Tomas Jane's voice acting and Garth Ennis' writing is just a winning combo. This game is just as good as I remember it. It's a solid TPS and the Marvel fan service is just icing on top. Having it be Marvel fan service from the point of view of Garth Ennis makes it amusing in it's own way.

I'll start with the good, the story and writing are both pretty good and even better if you are a fan of the Punisher himself, the story is an amalgamation of everything Garth Ennis wrote with the Punisher up untill the game's release with elements of the 2004 movie. The writing and voice acting are all solid and the story does a good job at building up intrigue with it being a framing story of sorts. The dialogue and Frank's one liners are also very amusing. Punisher also has a lot of humorous moments that are more along the lines of dark humor and Tomas Jane's delivery really sells it. The music is also really good and enchances the shootouts. The shooting with the guns and and damage animations all work in tandem to make for a solid third person shooter. It's also a weird precursor to the shooting in the Saints Row games so this game is a must play if you are a fan of that series. I also like how the game isn't completely a mindless TPS either, you won't be dodge rolling around while firing from the hip a lot, you will need to grab human shields and aim for the head too. It feels oddly in character and does a decent job at making the player feel vunerable but not overly invincible when playing even if the human shield mechanic I argue could do with some balancing despite that I do think the has one of the best human shield and the best interrogation mechanics I have played in a game since they all do a good job at making you *feel* like the Punisher despite some problems which I will mention. On a side note I love how the interrogation system reveals narrative foreshadowing that feels natural within the story which is a nice touch. The bosses are also decent enough if nothing speical, not the worst bosses I have experienced in a hitscan shooter where you fight human enemies

The human shield mechanic while very good, has some problems in terms of balancing, first the throwing enemies barely has any uses since you will get shot at while it is happening and it's hard to to aim your throws. That and I argue, it's a bit too much of a dominant strategy. It's easy to rush into a gun fight, grab someone, and then human shield them and use over the shoulder aiming for headshots. I do wish I got to use the other mechanics like dodge rolling, slaughter, and even crouching more but the human shield just did the trick a lot of the time. I think it would be better if armoured enemies couldn't be grabbed and can only be killed effectively with head shots. The health system is also weird, you don't get health back with pickups, you get health back by interrogations and saving people which is weird since the story never really contextualizes it and it can get rather dull interrogating people for the 20th time listening to the same dialogue just to get health back. It's interesting in that you will never be in an unwinnable state because you can get health back by grabbing and interrogating enemies but this system could do with more refinement, like maybe have Frank have a few medkits like in FEAR where he can hold up to 3 or 4 but it brings back parts of his health.

Overall, this is one of the best superhero games ever made, and is a must play if you like the Punisher and Marvel comics, if you are looking for a solid TPS game, this game is still worth playing and if you are Saints Row fan it's also worth trying out.

Gungrave G.O.R.E Review

Gungrave G.O.R.E is not the greatest game in the world, while I do think the game gets overly lambasted from what I have seen from some places, I also don't think it's an amazing game either, it's a game that is mediocre overall. I'll start with the bad and there is a number of issues I have with the game.

The story in this game especially coming from someone who enjoyed the stories of the first game, Overdose, and the anime is terrible. The game really suffers from that Thief 2014 problem of it being unable to decide if wants to be a reboot of a sequel. It had elements of a sequel due to the fact that it has characters from the previous games like Grave, Mika, and Bunji and expects you to know who they are and there is no backstory on any of them, it also expects you to know what SEED is too. It also throws in throaway boss fights with Bear Walken and Ballard Bird Lee too implying Grave has fought them before. But at the same time, it has elements of a reboot where they rarely if ever mention the events of Gungrave Overdose and it's aliens plot point that it had. It never mentions the events or characters from that game like Juji Kanbane for example so as a result, as a Gungrave fan, I am just wondering who on earth is this game's story is supposed to appeal to since fans and newcomers will both be confused. And it's not like the story on it's own is very good either. There is barely any kind of actual plot here and there is rarely any twists and turns and most of the story is just saving Mika and that's it, no plot development, changes, twists or the story being anything outside of saving Mika. What also doesn't help is that the voice acting and cutscenes are terrible. The cutscenes look like those weird CGI anime movies that are stiff and awkwardly animated. The voice acting outside of Quartz is also really terrible and the actors seems like they had no proper direction or they didn't understand the direction they were given. Okay story out of the way, the gameplay is alright but has a number of issues.

The guns and shooting feels decent enough all though Grave's pistols don't sound as good as previous games. You are given a ton of options that the game doesn't do a good job at making the player want to do. Storm Barrage isn't nearly as effective Burst Mode because Storm Barrage requires you to be close and need 50 beats to do and your beat count runs out fast when not actively hitting things. Plus Burst Mode is more accurate. The RPG skill tree feels out of place in a game like this since you will be upgrade base stats than buying new moves and the grab feature hardly ever worked for me. Some good additions is that you can do special executions to get some shield energy back and Demoliation Shots revive health, so despite late game shoving in lots of rocket enemies, snipers, orgmen and a ton of enemies in general, on easy the game feels decent enough fun to play and generally a dumb fun time, minus the terrible train level where most people will quit the game there.

Overall, Gungrave G.O.R.E is a mediocre if fun romp that never rises above being that. It's a game that I question it's existence overall due to the above mentioned issues.

Dragon Ball Kai the Final Chapters Review

Alright, the Buu Saga, the most infamous saga in all of DBZ, you want to know what's funny? I used to be harsh on this saga myself but after watching it recently, despite the issues it has, I still think it's pretty enjoyable and far from the worst saga in DB overall, for me that award goes to the Red Ribbon Army. 

The Buu Saga starts off decently enough, and I can honestly say that everything before Buu shows up is geniunely solid. It does a good job at building up established characters like Vegeta, Goku and Gohan and does a good job highlighting on how Gohan has been slacking during peace time while Goku and Vegeta have been training their butts off. Goten, Kid Trunks and Videl are also built up pretty well too. Videl is a decent enough character giving Gohan more to do after the guy was basically just getting involved in fights protecting the earth a lot of time. In fact, Goku's entire expanded friend circle is my favorite apsect of about DB in general, it feels like so much has happened if you watch the series from the very start all the way to now, the amount of friends and family Goku has made geniunely feels incredible that he even has that many people trusting of him. I say DB handles friendship better than a lot of shonen and this is why, in this series and unlike a lot of other shonen, characters aren't connected to each other due to being in a small down or a common goal, here, it's because they choose to be together despite living completely different walks of life. 

That and this Saga also is an interesting change for Toriyama as a creator too, here it feels like the story is coming full circle with him homaging the original Dragon Ball with the World Martial Arts Tournament being shown again, the emphasis on comedy and magic just like how Dragon Ball was when it first started. 

But back to the characters themselves, all the characters both old and new do a good job at establishing their personality and potential later on in the saga, admittedly it does a fumble a bit due to an issue I will mention later. Goten and Trunks being inexperienced but being overly arrogant when fused, or Gohan while being weaker still has that Sayain arrogance in him in fact the Buu Saga overall does a good job at establishing just how much Gohan has been slacking since Cell with the characters point out even when Gohan fully powered up, he is still not as powerful as he was when he fought Cell. 

Vegeta's foreshadowing when he becomes Majin is really well handled, it constantly shows his face with a disinterested look and him not even reacting to Videl getting brutalized that happens later and just how Vegeta was so disinteresting in the tournament overall. 

Piccolo's personality "change" is also an infamous aspect of the Buu Saga while it can be a bit jarring to see but the thing is, Piccolo as far back as the 23rd Martial Arts Tourament and the Sayain was never truly a "bad" person and was a soft person deep down so this isn't too out of the ordinary and while Super Sayain 3 was Toriyama making things up as he went a long, at least Vegeta approiately chastised him for it, and this saga was showing how arrogant and prideful sayains are overall. 

Majin Buu despite having his issues I will mention later is a solid enough antagonist for the series, a big issue with him is that he makes everyone besides a Sayains, "useful" but the thing is, what makes Toriyama so memorable as a writer is how much he abuses the worf effect and isn't afraid of making your favorite character look like an idiot. Buu is portrayed very dominantly throughout the whole saga and while there are issues, he does a good job at feeling like a powerful villain like for example he beats up Gohan who defeated Cell, he survived against a powered up Majin Vegeta, he took on a Super Sayain 3, killed everyone on the Kami's Lookout, and was even going to wipe out the entire universe, honestly, Buu might be the most memorable villain in the whole series due to Toriyama taking the Worf Effect to the crazy extreme here. It's what makes Buu such a memorable villain, if Tien, Yamcha and Krillin stood a chance against Buu and laid dent on here, Buu would be so much more boring as a result. 

Another good aspect of the Buu Saga is Mr. Satan himself, he went from being a one note show off in the Cell Saga to being a geniunely good character despite being one of the show's weakest characters in terms of strength, he managed to save the entire world from Buu and he has an interesting relationship with Buu. With how much Mr. Satan wanted to kill Buu to being the first friend Buu has ever had and this is what makes Dragon Ball's handling of the idea of friendship so interesting. It's because of Mr. Satan was friends with Buu and Goku saving Mr. Satan from Buu is why they were able to win, it wasn't because of the power of friendship, it was because Goku showed compassion towards Mr. Satan and Mr. Satan showing compassion to Buu is why they were able to win. 

And I might as well address a complaint the series has had for a while is the whole wishing people back with the dragon balls. While I get it as a complaint, I am not sure if having the dragon balls getting magically erased and having DBZ end on a depressing note especially out of nowhere with how goofy the Buu Saga is to be good writing either. 

Now after singing all this praise, why am I giving this Saga a 7? Well a big issue while Majin Buu is a memorable villain and portrayed very dominantly, the problem with him is that he is so overpowered that Toriyama just kept adding abilities and powers on top of more of them because it's magic we can do whatever we want. For example, take Buu's regeneration, he can only do it because of magic and it's never explained how his regeneration actually works or if there are any drawbacks to his rengeneration. With Cell and the Androids, in spite of them breaking the power scaling, there was a logic to how they worked. With the Androids, they didn't have energy making them hard to sense and they never lose energy when fighting, Android 19 and 20 needed to suck energy out, Cell had all the cells of Goku, his friends, and Frieza, so it does make sense why Cell would be so powerful, that and Cell's regeneration came from Piccolo and he needed the nucleus to be destroyed to be beaten, the series was vague about it but there was some logic behind it, with Buu, he can regenerate to his heart's content and still be as powerful as ever. Frieza also had some drawbacks in that he had to use the scouters and overly relied on them which ultimately lead to his downfall in the long run. As a result, it feels like Toriyama never knew how to actually get ride of Buu due to the lack of drawbacks, every time Buu gets beaten, he would transform or get a new ablity, as a result while the way Kid Buu gets beaten is great themematically and is good writing in a different way, it feels like Toriyama desperately wanted to find a way to get rid of him, and while it was interesting, it almost felt like Buu only died because the plot decided for his unlimited regeneration to not kick in. 

And the finally, the ending, while I don't dislike it as much as I used to, I felt like the Cell Saga's ending felt like there was some degree of finality to it because evil was only connected to Goku but now, it feels like evil can happen at any time and it can appear forever despite Goku and friends living in peace the story can keep coming up with threats forever, and now there probably never be a sense of finality to the story. As a result, Z's ending doesn't so much feel like a conclusion but a prelude of things to come which doesn't make for nearly as good of a conclusion as the Cell Saga. 

Overall, Buu Saga is good but it felt like Toriyama kind of overstepped himself in some cases while having many great moments. 

Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven Review

Tenchu Wrath of Heaven overall is a solid sequel and is the best Tenchu game released up until that point and even the best Tenchu game overall. 

I'll start with the good, the stealth kills are fantastic. They even more gratifying and guresome than they were in the previous games, there is more variety of them like air kills and the front kills from Tenchu 2 are back and more satisfying to pull off here, when the human enemies add a death bark after the kill, it kinds of adds a weird comedic charm to the kill after pulling it off. The best part is, unlike Tenchu 2, the game's stealth kills never bug out and they always play. When it comes to polish, Wrath of Heaven is easily the best game in the series, stealth kills will mostly always be consistent to pull off, the collision detection with the grappling hook has mostly if not entirely ironed out from the last game, and you no longer have to be on an even slope in order to take cover behind a wall. The addition of double jumping being easy to pull of with a tap double tap of the x button makes it great to reach platforms and even get a quick air kill on the enemy. The level design is also as good as it's always been, the levels are nice and wide open and while linear can be approached in a number of different ways thanks to the grappling hook and items you can obtain. The levels all make great use of vertical spaces and your grappling hook will actively be used. You will be killing enemies from corners then jumping over pits then waiting for them to move as you wait hanging across the ledge, the final two levels make great use out of this. The look button also comes in handy when it observing your surrondings on where to go. The maps are also much bigger now and all though you progress through them in a linear fashion the individual sqaures and boxes that comparise of each map has enough stair ways of vertical spaces to the point where it doesn't feel like you are going through a straight line. The situational depth and enviroment vairety is also impressive here too. You will be going through a multi house estate, then a mission where you can't kill anyone and then the level has enemies later, then a limestone cavern with death pits, then a Ronin village, then a level with zombies where your health slowly drains, and this is only some of the level variety and situations in Tenchu Wrath of Heaven, even though you will be stealth killing and waiting for the kill a lot, the game throws enough at the player to keep everything varied and interesting. The music is also fantastic and now there is actual background music going through the levels adding atmosphere to your ninja killing sprees unlike Tenchu 2. 

Now, I'll start describing the bad, and I feel like these hold this game from being a great game to a good game. First, it's the camera, the big issue is that right stick movement is there but it's very slow and cumbersome, and it's not as reliable as using the look button, and even then the look button isn't as effective as just simpily being able to turn the right stick. This feels like a weird carry over from the PS1 Tenchus where the PS1 games it made sense to actively use the look button since the draw distance was limited, and not only this but so much of the stealth consists of you taking cover behind walls and peaking around corners and proper right stick movement would've been beneficial here, not only that but a lot of avoidable alerts might be triggered because right stick movement just feels too slow and the look button isn't good enough substitute. Next issue is the boss fights and the addition of unlockable moves after getting around 10 stealth kills. The bosses are just as awful as they were in previous games and now they are even more aggressive with grabs that can't be broken out of either. They feel out of place since these are bosses more akin to an action game than a stealth game and it just feels out of place to restart a level from the beggining with no checkpoints because you died to a boss fight that didn't even belong in a game like this. The unlockable moves also feel pointless since they are mostly combat related and combat is still as awful as ever before, but now with the chance of getting staggered to oblivion before you can even break out of it and start attacking as awful as they were in previous games, at least you could win simpily by blocking and then waiting for an opening and then striking but in this game now there is more factors to consider like when to attack, when to block and when to avoid unbreakable grabs. The stealth unlockables are also pointless since it's the same Tenchu design and they don't make very use of them in the actual level design, you can ignore them and get through the game just fine. The story is also really terrible and while I don't mind this on it's own, my big issue is that the multiple interconnected campaigns of Tenchu 2 are gone so now even though the campaigns with Rikimaru and Ayame have their own serialized stories unlike Tenchu Stealth Assassins, they are both isolated from each other and are both very badly written, which is a shame because Tenchu 2's strength was it's story and interconncted campaign. Also, the story is just terrible, so much poorly explained supernatural plot points, and heavy amounts of retconning, and while I get it considering how Stealth Assassins ended, I still don't think it excuses the poor writing overall. The villains while being kind of memorable in terms of personality and looks get killed off before you get to know them, which is something Tenchu 2 avoided with it's multiple camapaigns since Tatsamaru's fleshed out the Burning Dawn. 

Overall, Tenchu Wrath of Heaven is the best Tenchu game ever made but at the same time, it falls short of being a truly great game, still worth checking out but every game after this, I am not even sure I want to play.