Metroid Fusion Review

Metroid Fusion turned out to be a pretty big surprise. I wasn't the biggest fan of Super Metroid and Zero Mission I found to just be "good". Fusion however turned out to be mostly good time and is one of the better 2D Metroid pre Metroid Dread. It's one of my favorite games in the series even with some of the issues I have with it.

One good thing about Fusion is the story, and it isn't exactly going to be one of the greatest fictional tales ever but at the same time, it gave some much needed context to the gameplay that I felt other 2D Metroids before this one lacked. Samus talks but it's not an overwhelming amount of dialogue and you always hear her speak when given good reason to like during elevator rides or when she needs to strongly oppose her command. I always like it when games figure out a way to include what characters are thinking since a medium like this makes it hard to do since you can't tell read a game character's face or body language during gameplay but the elevator rides are a good enough way. You know more about Samus in this particular game then any Metroid game before and it's nice to see her show doubt and reveal backstory about her past.

However the other characters outside of Samus are just okay. Adam works well enough as an antagonist and guide to Samus and I liked it when he acted surprised whenever the Samus and by extension the player does something he did not expect and when an opposing force in a game reacts to what the player did that is a sign of solid writing and it also goes against the notion that Samus in Fusion and the player is "bossed around" the whole game. However the AI of Adam being based or connected to someone from Samus' past does seem to require a bit of the stars aligning to accept since it was never made clear if the Adam Samus knew was so respected that it was worth replicating him through AI. It just seems to come a little out of left field.

The SA-X is a decent antagonist and does a good job at making the player and Samus feel underpowered whenever she pops up whether it'd be hiding from her when she does pop in the story or running away. You can't even fight the SA-X on even terms until the very end of the game giving her presence as a villain that much more weight. However her scarificing herself for Samus can come a little of nowhere since she went from hunting Samus the whole game to scarificing herself just seemed way too sudden.

Fusion's story is solid for the kind of game it is but the gameplay I also consider good too.

The first and biggest improvement Fusion brings to the 2D Metroid formula is are the improved controls and boy, they are a massive step up over Super's despite the GBA having less buttons to work with.

First of all, no more pressing the start button to select missiles and activating power bombs, now just hold the R button and you can use them. Making combat and moment to moment exploration much less of a game of moving the thumb off the face buttons and switch to a stronger ability.

Platforming and the physics and improved too so now being able to do consistent and precise jumps feels a lot better to do. There is also a ledge grab now which is also a nice addition making platforms you missed by a hair pin something that doesn't feel like a limitation of the game.

Another improvement is that missiles abilties now stack up rather than selecting to choose between regular missiles and super missiles.

As a result, all though the bosses can be challenging especially the power loader, Ridley X and the final SA-X bosses, they never felt as frustrating as Super's bosses since the controls are as tight as they are. Another point to Fusion's favor is that a lot of the bosses don't take that long to die all though however their final X form can be a little on the challenging side and can feel like a cheap shot for first time players since they thought the the boss was dead and you have to fight a fast moving "final form" of the boss with precise missile shots for you to kill it and the boss is dead.

Fusion's level design is mostly good, there are those who criticize the game for being more linear but I don't mind more straightforward level design as long as what the player is doing in between the treks is engaging and there are other metroidvanias like Guacamelee and Prince of Persia Lost Crown gives you a guided option.

There will be moments where the player will have to explore, find a power up and then go back to the marked area Adam told you to go. The various locks require some legwork from the player to get to.

With all that said, there are moments that could stump players since this a 2D Metroid pre Samus Returns so it's not made clear which areas will be destroyed by morph ball bombs and what parts of the map Samus can interact with so these parts can be a massive guessing game especially without a guide since there is no scanning blocks ability at all.

Overall, Fusion held up remarkably well for the most part.

Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2 Review

I never really planned on playing this game, I'm not really into the kind of game Xenoverse 2 tries to be but I wanted at least one more Dragon Ball game and I was planning on it to be Buu's Fury but that game turned out to be more annoying than fun. I also got the PS5 version for free since the PS4 version was already bought years ago so if I dislike Xenoverse 2 there isn't much lost. As a whole, the game is just "okay". I might prefer Kakarot and FighterZ over this as far as modern DB games are concerned but I had some fun from Xenoverse 2.

Some good things about the game is that the character interactions, english voice acting, cutscenes and overall production values while not amazing get the job done. It's not an Kakarot's and FighterZ's level but Xenoverse 2 also tells an original story which is something Kakarot doesn't have so there is some novelty to the latter. The plot in Xenoverse 2 sort of just seems to be Kingdom Hearts' story in the Disney Worlds except with a time travel twist in that it's esstentially an over the top fan fiction, after all the character you create is a self insert of the player. The character interactions and over the top scenarios does carry much of the game more so than the writing itself being geniunely well written. If you ever wanted to play out a DB fan fic here is a game for you.

The gameplay is just kind of...there. The idea of building your own character and doing missions with any 2 characters you want is a pretty concept. The main problem is that the 2 characters are basically just meat shields.

That and the game's campaign is also padded, you need to do "parrallel quests" in order to be properly levelled for story missions but these quests are harder than the main story missions. I eventually got so sick of doing them that I lowered to easy, I also did it because enemies can level your health bar pretty fast when they do a ultimate attack but on easy you can tank more hits and enemies have less HP and on top of this, you can the same rewards no matter what difficulty you play so playing on normal you don't need to do.

Most of the game is spent in combat and I have seen many rip apart Xenoverse's combat for being "simplistic" and I'd say they are right. The Tenkaichi especially 3 and Sparking Zero have far more going on with it's combat. Comparing this unfavourbly to FighterZ would just be too much since that is a more of a technical fighting game.

Xenoverse 2 is basically a game of hitting someone with a combo, then another combo, then slamming them across the map and then hitting them with a ki attack particularly an energy volley.

Close quarters combat is no different than subsitition jutsu from Naruto Storm where you can get endlessly comboed unless you have a teleport lined up on a separate meter, this case being stamina.

That pretty much sums up Xenoverse 2, you basically do all this for a couple of hours and roll credits. There is probably more fun to be had in multiplayer and DLC.

Overall, I played the game because I wanted to a DB game that I haven't played before and I guess I got just that. It wasn't really a game for me but I am happy I got to the end at all.

Rogue Warrior Review

I never thought I would play this game again of all things but the fact that it was on Playstation Premium and this is one of the streamable PS3 games on the service made me really want to come back to it since I never played this game's PS3 version. How this of all games made on to the service at all is what I don't get but I welcome playing it again.

Rogue Warrior in a lot of ways is the "best" bad game ever made, there are some others I would list but nothing ever really tops this particular game. A lot of other "bad" games I played and I don't mean disappointing games in popular franchises, usually tends to make me angry for a few hours and then I forgot I played them but Rogue Warrior is such a memorable title.

This can be due to the short length, the hilariously bad over the top dialogue and voice acting particularly by the main character and how the story is nothing more than a vague excuse plot to show off how "awesome" he is. The gameplay itself while can be functional at times has lousy gunplay and dumb AI. The brutal takedowns only add to the hilarity since it once again shows off how much of a "badass" Dick Marcinko love to view himself as. There is nothing more funny than going up close and constantly sprinting up to enemies for a takedown to happen. Where games like Deus Ex Human Revolution often needs resources for takedowns to be done, in Rogue Warrior, you can just keep using it.

As easy as it is to tear apart Rogue Warrior, there are *some* things it kind of does geniunely well. First of all, while you have a mini map, the game does a decent enough job at guiding the player using lights particularly green lights on where to go every door and switch is colored in green so if it's that color, you can interact with it.

Grenades get more use than they do in the CoD games since the health pool is pretty small and it's often encouraged to try to get in a good grenade throw to kill 2 or even 3 enemies.

The aforementioned takedowns are pretty satisfying to look out and has that Tenchu feel of getting a nicely detailed death animation rewarding the player for being sneaky.

The game also checkpoints pretty well and you don't have to do an overwhelming amounts of content upon death.

With all that said, Rogue Warrior isn't close to the realm of geniunely good. Weapons don't sound that great and if you aren't using the LMG and AK while using ADS and aim assist is a game of luck since most of the weapons feel very inaccurate to use. Trying to get a kill with an SMG or shotgun without getting gunned downed seconds after firing feels like a game of luck especially since the health pool on normal difficulty is really small.

The cover system is useless and is almost never needed where a game like Rainbow 6 Vegas gives you open areas with lots of cover and cover helps you getting hit from long range, Rogue Warrior's cover system is gives you a limited feel of view when aiming from cover and you can't use iron sights. Killzone 2 and 3 with it's first person cover at least lets you use ADS. As a result, it's just easier to ADS, shoot, get hit, wait for health to regen rinse repeat.

Stealth is borderline non existent since it's often easier to get takedown while everyone's backs are turned, if you want to reliably sneak past enemies using a third person cover system Deus Ex Human Revolution this is not.

The pistol is also has too slow of a fire rate to even use.

There are hardly any set pieces, any major shakeups to gameplay and most if not all the game is either half baked stealth and cover shootouts.

Sure all this is bad game design but when combine all this together with the dialogue, voice acting and just the dumb ridiculously stupid straight to DVD action thriller vibe the game seemingly is going for, and this makes Rogue Warrior a game that is hard to put down. It's a trainwreck in video game form.

Overall, if you want to have a quick exploration into a "bad game" without needing a time sync and realize how much you take good game design for granted, Rogue Warrior is worth taking a look. There's not many geniunely bad games that are as charming as this one.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review

This game was a complete surprise along with the fact that it shadow dropped along with an announcement of Ninja Gaiden 4. However with that said, it seems the entire existence for this remake is to hype of NG4 and nothing more since there isn't very many differences that I can notice between this and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 however I never played the original Xbox 360 game. With all this said, if you bought the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that came out a few years ago, you don't really have much reason to get this remake since Master Collection comes with Sigma 1 and Sigma 2 and even NG3 Razor's Edge. If you played NGS2, most of the major moments you will already be aware of. Outside of the additional of blood and gore and more "realistic" visuals, it's the same game, unless if you are a NG super fan who wants to know the difference between every version of every NG game, 2 Black at it's current asking price just isn't worth it with the Master Collection avaliable, unless if you really want the blood and gore and prefer the look of 2 Black.

Anyways, with that out of the way, since this is very much Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Black 2 carries that game's strengths and weaknesses.

Let's start with the weaknesses, the story is terrible, I know playing an NG game for the story is already a dumb idea to begin with and the game is taking the John Carmack Doom 1993 approach where story in a game is like story in porn but I argue even as an excuse plot, Ninja Gaiden 2's story fails. It's like the developers had a bunch of cool ideas and epic set pieces moments but could never make them logically transition to each other. A game story at the very least should give reasons why the player is going from level to level but NG2's story never really tries to have any of it make sense.

Characters are never given very clear motivations to why they are doing what they are doing, villains get introduced out of nowhere and have their character be expressed by entirely through monologuing, they never do anything with their actions to annoy Ryu or the player, and most of the cutscenes show Ryu in a new location but never really establishes how he got there. Sonia can't decide if she wants to be a tough girl or a damsel in distress. Villains also come back after being killed in previous chapters and the final boss has little to no actual characterization to him other than he is evil.

Ryu Hyabusa himself is basically Devil May Cry 2 Dante except the latter has more memorable lines and moments by comparison.

I know I'm harping on the story, but compared to something like God of War and in many ways it's rival series Devil May Cry, NG's story feels like it is trying to be a dumb action movie but fails at trying connect the major moments together.

The camera is pretty bad, but it's been said a million times already, it's tolerable but there are times where it gets cramped and it gives you a bad angle on the action. It's also easy to get attacked by offscreen projectiles and fast moving enemies.

Bosses are okay but they feel easy by comparison to the hordes with only their unbreakable grab moves being the only threat they pose to you.

With all that out of the way, I mostly had a great time with the game. There are multiple major changes. The heavy focus on action and less on platforming and puzzles, the dismemberment system, the higher enemy count, the changes to ranged weapons, an easier to access dodge button and being able to hold less healing items.

When you combine all this together, this makes for a much more entertaining, frantic and over the top game than the first Ninja Gaiden.

Combat is basically an over the top ballet of dodges, attacking enemies, cutting off their limbs then doing an execution attack then timing everything to perform an max essence attack to kill more enemies. The enemy count is much higher giving you even more reason to do these attacks.

Enemies drop health and there are always healing itsems lying around so the combat while having it's annoying moments always felt fair and never did it feel cheap. Murmasa shops are always around when low on healing items.

Weapon switching is also somewhat encouraged too. Dragon Sword is a good starter weapon, but the bigger weapons like the Emma's Fang and the Scythe are great for bigger enemies since it staggers them better, Vigoor Fail is great for the ghost fishes, and lunar is great for large groups. You do get a little too many melee weapons and stuff like surikens hardly got any use but I do like that weapon switching is encouraged at all.

Platforming is still not good but rarely if ever do you need to be super precise with it and you need to actually avoid death pits so that is a massive point to NG2's favor.

The death animations are also really fun to watch and each weapon has it's own set of animations which is impressive.

Overall, I do enjoy NG Black 2 even if this remake feels about as nessescary as Last of Us Part 1.

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation Review

I was never really going to play this game especially considering that it was never that well liked even among AC fans but since it came with AC3 Remastered, I decided to play it. As a whole, there is nothing remarkable or very interesting about the game outside of the persona system. Where AC Bloodlines was sort of interesting that in that it could be done on a system like the PSP at all, Liberation just feels like a portable AC3 but even that is not a novelty since the game isn't exclusive to the Vita anymore.

The good things about AC3: Liberation in that in terms of visuals and controls, it is very faithful to AC3 and like I said before, it feels like AC3 on the go and your enjoyment really depends on how much you like that game. It's parkour mechanics, controls, visuals, and combat is pretty much AC3. The only big differences being now you get a whip, a mark and execute feature and different costumes. The naval combat is gone but I don't think it controlled well in AC3 so I don't miss it.

The whip outside of platforming is mostly useless and outside of the occasional section where you need to swing to another platform, it barely gets much use.

Mark and execute also doesn't add much since the game's combat is already leaning towards the easy side and countering can already lead to an instant death to an enemy anyway since the window for it so large.

The biggest and most interesting addition is the persona system. It's esstentially the player getting 3 different skins with different attributes and abilites. Slave lets you blend in with others and parkour, Assassin lets you use the entire tool kit and parkour, and the Lady gives you the ability to charm npcs but no parkour or nimble movement. On paper, this should give the player different choices during gameplay. Play as the slave to blend in and get lower notriety, play as the Assassin and risk standing out in public but have your toolkit and gain more notriety or play as the Lady where you can charm guards and blend in with larger crowds.

If the game leaned into stealth more and had more missions where all 3 personas can complete a mission, then this would be an AC that geniunely stands out from the other games but instead you need specific skins for specific missions. This almost feels like one of the few games in the series where the game tries to live up to the idea of "social stealth". It even stands out from the Hitman games since you can't take any set of clothes and each skin gives you certain stats.

That pretty much leans into much next issue, the missions and if you played any AC game from 2 onwards, it's just going through the usual motions. If this was a style of game I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, I wouldn't mind so much but this isn't.

Many of the missions are just do what the developer wants or else it's an instand fail. Ignoring all that here's what you will mainly be doing: tailing, fighting, occasional stealth, parkouring, investigating pretty much all this but in a different order that I mentioned.

If any of these individual gameplay styles were interesting on their own, maybe I'd be less lukewarm but instead I just find it dull. Tailing just consist of you slowly keeping up with an npc and hoping you can stay away from his line of sight long enough so the mission is over and you can move fast again.

Fighting just consist of mashing the attack button, occasionally doing guard breaks and different attacks while also using the overpowered counter move.

Stealth is also AC pre Unity so no crouch button and since this is AC there will always be detections you swore that you didn't do but happens anyway, the bush stealth wouldn't even become reliable until AC4. If the mission didn't allow me to be caught, I would always pick combat since it's easier and more reliable by comparison to stealth.

Parkour is the same as AC3 meaning sprinting and grabbing on to ledges and hand holds is mapped to one button so I can hold R2 and I don't need to do much all though there will be moments where I want to run but instead I grab onto something.

Investigating just consist of looking into a highlighted zone and holding the inspect button until you move on to the next sequence.

Thing is, most if not all these issues can apply to AC3 and many of the AC games in general. Not even in the story is that interesting since everything feels jumbled and disjointedly told. Where AC3 and 4 were carried by their stories, Liberation barely has much worth talking about outside of it's interesting premise that doesn't get explored that much.

I suppose one decent thing I can say about the game is that the game isn't too long and doesn't overstay it's welcome for too long.

Overall, AC Liberation is just more of the same of a franchise I consider to be medicore, AC Mirage might've gotten a lukewarm response as a whole but maybe it's proof that this formula was never that interesting. If you like this style of game then maybe check it out.

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles Review

I played Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles on Playstation Now a decade ago and I recall not being able to finish it since PS Premium has Darkside Chronicles and it's one of the few PS3 games I haven't played that is on the service, I decided to play it. I also wanted to play it after recently dropping Code Veronica. I did beat the game with a PS5 controller on easy mode, it's beatable but easy mode is really challenging and it certainly isn't as accomadating for analog stick controller players like House of the Dead Overkill is.

The visuals are really good for a former Wii game and seeing Resident Evil 2 environments with a higher poly count is fan service that still manages to impress me even in a post Resident Evil 2 remake gaming industry despite me finding that said remake disappointing.

Code Veronica's portions were "fine" but me not caring for that game lessens the impact of seeing it reimagined. I just wished that game would just a proper remake already. I do tolerate Steve Burnside more here because of his voice acting, direction and dialogue. Alfred Ashford's voice acting isn't as hilariously over the top as it was in the original CV game.

Weapons sound good and killing enemies especially getting headshots on zombies has a very nice satisfying "pop" to them.

I do really like how the game encourages you to switch weapons a lot. You got the infinite ammo pistol as a weapon to kill weaker hordes of zombies with and a good fallback weapon. SMG and shotgun is good for close range and enemies like Hunters, grenade launcher, grenades and magnum for bosses and stronger enemies. It does a good job at keeping in with the "resource mangement" side of Resident Evil within the context in a rail shooter. You can beat something like House of the Dead Overkill primarily using the starting pistol by comparison.

There are some useless weapons like the bow gun, you can empty an entire clip and it still won't kill an enemy.

Speaking of resource management, Darkside Chronicles does what the series usually does a good job with and that is pacing out it's healing items. There will always be a first aid spray or herb after a couple of enemy waves and when you've probably taken a good amount of damage.

A huge positive is that the checkpoints are really well spaced out and there is rarely an overwhelming amount content you have to redo upon death after using all your first aid sprays and herbs.

There is also a good amount of content here for a rail shooter.

Now the negatives are that the upgrade system doesn't really add much since you primarily upgrade the pistol since it's the gun with infinite ammo and it's going to be the gun to always fallback to.

The biggest negative however are the boss fights, this could be me using a PS5 controller, but these boss fights were pretty difficult even on easy.

The RE2 portions were by far the hardest since you don't have the grenade and rocket launchers and magnum and the last few missions mostly just a boss rush. You have to fight William Birkin at the very least 8 times and he was just starting to overstay his welcome and I just wished he went away. At least in RE2, if you choose to play past the Leon A has the last few Birkin fights seperated by a rethread of the game but from Claire's perspective, removing this just makes me wish he would just die already.

Alexia was the second hardest due to how much damage she took with just the regular pistol and forced me to use most of my most powerful weapons early.

It's not only you having to shoot the bosses in time before the blows they throw land on you but you also need to have an extremely fast trigger finger. This could be due to streaming, my finger being slow when it comes to games or me not playing on a lightgun but if I hadn't develop an ability where I used left thumb controlled the reticle through the left stick and right thumb was on the fire button, it being R1, I wouldn't even be able to beat Alexia.

The specific "puzzle" section shooting parts were annoying since if I screwed up these, I could lose health and possibly restart the boss due to misunderstanding during a heated moment.

The story and the way it contextualizes events felt like an afterthought. For example it is primarily about Leon and Krauser going through Operation Javier but Leon isn't in CV so those sections feel pointless. The Veronica virus in series canon never amounted to anything. These portions itself felt like a filler episode of a TV show since I don't even understand why Krauser turned heel by the end of it, Javier dies without revealing anything useful, and Manuela also dies so nothing new is learned and no character insight happens. At least Umbrella Chronicles explained how the company was defeated so that provided more to the overarching RE narrative.

Overall, despite my issues, I do enjoy DC, I failed to beat Umbrella Chronicles so I thought I would dislike DC but instead I had some fun with it even with a contoller.

Medal of Honor: Airborne Review

I originally played MoH Airborne a couple of years ago on normal difficulty and didn't like it. I dropped it after playing it for an hour, however I went back to it on casual mode and I really enjoyed it. Casual mode feels like the game's true difficulty for first time players, you can take more damage and you have more chances to mess up and tank more hits. As a whole, I'd say this is one of the more memorable games in the series, it's just a shame the time period in which it came out in.

A couple of noticable and very welcome additions to Airborne is that health now regenerates up to 4 blocks and each block can regen if you avoid taking enough damage, this is a very good change since now, it feels like a fighting chance when low on health, sure it's still hitscan and not projectile which makes combat not as tense and enjoyable as Resistance Fall of Man but at the same time, if you play carefully enough you can spend a decent amount of time with one or two bars.

Enemies drop health much more often now which makes gunfights making me feel less like a tank that is on borrowed time.

While you have can hold up two rifles and a pistol, the Ratchet and Clank fan in me was losing his mind over the idea of having weapons level up the more they are used and getting new perks upon each upgrade. It did get me to experiment with certain guns a little more, I mostly used the MP40 but I did get some use out of the Springfield and Shotgun too.

I also like how you can only pick up select ammo pick ups and not pick up ammo from dead soliders since now that means I won't primarily be using the MP40.

You can also use a variety of different grenades and they level up too. The anti tank grandes come in handy for later hordes too.

This was in other MoH games but when you aim down sights, you can't actually move while doing it but only lean left to right. Some could take an issue to this especially if they are used to games like CoD but Airboure is where this system finally feels realized. Trying to peak around corners and flanking enemies feels like a reliable tactic and it becomes a life saver towards the end of the game since the enemy count is doubled and shooting while leaning means an enemy will have a harder time trying to hit you. This is especially a useful tactic at close range with the shotgun.

Guns feel pretty weighty and powerful with good sound design and good death animations.

The final big change is what I like is that the game for the most part isn't very scripted. You can parachute and land on any part of the level depending how far you can steer your landing to the ground so if there is an objective you want to complete, you can land to the part where the objective is located and get closer to it all though there are some mandatory parts where you can only respawn at a fixed checkpoint.

However, there are issues with the game. One being rocket launcher enemies and they really suck in this game. You pretty much have to memorize their spawn points or at the very least quickly try to figure out where they are on the map before they fire a rocket and take out 75% of your health, I beat this on casual, I can picture this being infuriating on anything higher. At least snipers have a visual indicator telling you where they are. Rocket enemies can appear out of nowhere and instantly kill you if you don't know where they are.

Rockets have always been a hitscan shooter's protagonist's kryptonite and Airbourne just makes that more obvious.

The MP40 as usual in WW2 tends to be the most dominat weapon especially when upgraded

The final level of the game can be the parachute system pretty infuriating since there is a lot of ground you have to cover before getting to each objective and if you don't have a lot of MP40 ammo lined up, it's going to make mowing down enemies before getting to the objective feel a lot longer to get to. There is an eventual fixed checkpoint but this takes a while to get, and before that, there is a lot of ground to cover before completing an objective.

The explosion at the end did make that final level worth it since it felt like my hardwork eventually paid off.

There are many who like to call the game short, but with that final level, I'd say continuing past it would just be a losing battle since it already felt like the challenge was being pushed to it's limit.

Overall, MoH Airborne as quite a surprise, it's one of my favorite games in the series and it's one of the last good ones before the series tried to turn itself into Call of Duty and made extremely sub par scripted campaigns in the vein of those games.Updated 4 Secs Ago

Devil May Cry(2001) Review

Playing DMC1 for the first time in over a decade, playing so many 3D beat em ups since then and playing games prior to it especially really gives me a soft spot for the game. However, there are a number of issues with it but at the same time there is a lot of charm to the game too. DMC1 in many ways is "first intallment weirdness" in it's most raw form. I can get why someone wouldn't enjoy it but as a guy who has played so many games and knowing DMC1's place in gaming history does help me appreciate it.

First thing that is awkward about it is that the default button layout on PS2(played it on PCSX2) is not good especially after playing modern games and even games a few years after it's release. Triangle is jump, circle is to attack, and the game has shoot and interact on sqaure and cross as a dedicated interact button, why the game has two interact buttons I don't get. You also can't use firearms unless if the lock on button is held. Had to do quite a bit of settings tinkering to have the buttons placements be more comfortable for me.

Next up is the story and the thing is I don't mind that it's basically an excuse plot but at the same time, it's attempts at trying to have emotional moments really falls flat for me. Trish is a pretty bad character, she barely shows up in the game to have any kind of attachment towards her. She barely does anything for the 2/3s of the game then suddenly wants Dante dead then scarifices herself for him in the following scene. There is barely any interactions between them to form a geniune bond so Dante getting depressed for her "death" falls flat. Mundas barely does much of anything to warrant me wanting to dislike him. The only really good thing the cutscenes even have is the music.

This has been stated over again but the camera is just awful, combine that with the lack of a dedicated dodge button and it doesn't always feel like I can reliably dodge attacks and defeat enemies with efficiently. The camera can change angles out of nowhere in the middle of combat, you can get attacked from offscreen especially with projectiles and as a whole it never does a good job at framing the moment to moment action, sometimes you can attacked and then the angle will change into something so different and not only do you realign the analog stick to a new direction but the dodging also becomes a game of hoping you activate the dodge roll and not have Dante do a flip or jump.

Compare this to the older God of Wars' camera or how those games have a dedicated dodge command can't help but remind me that those games handled it better than DMC.

As a result, much of the combat can be cheesed by using Alastor, activating Devil Trigger, fly and then start spamming air raid. Devil Trigger can heal you too.

The save system is arahiac with the lives system, you could buy new moves and they are expensive.

The bosses range from okay like Phantom, Griffon and Nelo Angelo to bad like Nightmare and Mundas. Nightmare you have to fight 3 times and Mundas you have to an extremely out of place shoot em up mini game before getting to the actual fight where the real combat mechanics are used.

Okay, I've been complaining about the game a lot, but there is things the game does well, in terms of atmosphere and level design, the game is solid, it can be a little hard to tell where to go but that is due to respawning enemies but the it's older Resident Evil DNA can be found here all though there is no inventory managment, you can to collect items and put them in certain places to activate doors and open new paths.

It's really fun to see how Dante will go to new places in Mundas' Castle but will ultimately end up to where he started, there is some nice narrative foreshadowing too like how the entrance to the castle has a stautue where Phantom gets impaled on or how by the end of the game, the plane you see in the first few rooms of mission 1 is the plane Dante and Trish uses to get out of in the ending.

Mundas Castle is dripping with gothic horror atmosphere combine that with music as well as the game always spawning in enemies when Dante takes something of importance really sells the idea of he is in a place where he isn't supposed to be.

The combat when everything aligns can be enjoyable even if the game's style point system is never forced on the player but it is nice to shoot enemies from far away, then crowd control them with million stab, dodge out the way and occasionally launch them in the air and hit them down again. After playing some earlier games with 3D beat em up combat, this level of control for it's time was pretty novel.

Overall, DMC1 is a game that has many issues but I do find it to be a charming game but apart of me just wonders how much of this is just due to how many games I played over the years and certain things about it stand out more to me more than it will with others. If you don't enjoy it, I understand but I find DMC1's first installment weirdness to be so fascinating.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Review

I've been wanting to play Silent Hill Shattered Memories for a long time, the problem was is that the game was always insanely expensive when trying to get a physical copy and PCSX2 for the longest time had a hard time running the game stably but recent developments has now allowed me to play SHSM from begginning to end without much if not any issues at all. I could've played the Wii version but I don't like motion controls.

As for the game itself, I don't love it but I don't dislike it either, I would be much more lukewarm on the game but I didn't find the gameplay to be grating enough to overly detract from my experience playing the game.

What Shattered Memories basically is a nutshell is a reimagining of the first Silent Hill where the bad ending that everything was in Harry's mind was the focal point to the story. So esstentially a "what if", an Elseworlds story or one of Marvel's many offshoot universes outside of Earth 616. There is no mention or even a slight refrence to the cult group from the original game, the characters in that game are so in name only and there are also new characters who also never appeared either.

When going into the game knowing all this, the many changes to the original game's story becomes easier to accept, it's not really a full on remake but a different take featuring the same concepts.

What Shattered Memories has going for it is by far it's presentation. The visuals look great and hold up great for a Wii game. The snow and character models are quite detailed and the seemless transitions to the Nightmare World is pretty impressive considering it's happening as the player is walking around in the town. The way Harry's flashlight's interacts with the world is pretty quite immersive since shinning things with flashlight is what the player is primarily be doing.

The story is pretty interesting and the voice acting might be some of the better in the series. The way it is told is pretty interesting in how Dr. Kaufman is a therapist and how interviews you the player and how it effects the story going forward. It's told in a rather indirect way but this is usual for the series. I do think the voice acting and character interactions are enough to carry me through it since Harry's conviction to save his daughter is still there and the plot point that he is a writer isn't missable this time around. It was pretty engaging for the short time the game lasts.

The music is decent but it is a lot more minimal this time around and it might be one of Yamaoka's weaker OSTs, probably due to the minimalism but I don't recall the tracks here that much outside of Hell Frozen Rain.

Gameplay is the most divisive part of the game and I didn't outight dislike it but I don't love it either. Combat is gone now. There is no ammo or health to pick up, no levels to explore, no items to collect and anything relating to combat or exploration. It's esstentially a narrative exploration game with scripted chases here and there.

So in a sense, SHSM was breaking new ground for being one of the first popular experimental horror and narrative based games.

While I'm not big on those kinds of games, the short length plus the chases not being overly long prevents the game from a complete and total slog, but your milage may vary depending on how good you are at guessing the route you need to go without getting grabbed by monsters too much and getting a game over. However the game does feature a map on Harry's phone and while monsters are searching, you can look at it to tell you where you need to go and even outside of combat, you will always have a marker telling where to head to.

The only thing left now are the puzzles and they mostly consist of typing in codes and finding keys, the latter of which you find by doing an easy motion puzzle which obviously tells you it was made for the Wii first and foremost.

Here is the thing, I would be be more critical on all of this but Silent Hill never really had the greatest of gameplay. It wasn't bad by any means and especially in the original SH2, it was nothing more than a means to an end. The 1999 game had servicable enough gameplay and only SH3 out of the original few games had moment to moment gameplay that could rival a Resident Evil and it's indie game successors.

Combat is removed? The normal difficulties of SH1 and 2 pretty much made you feel like an invicible one man army to begin with. There wasn't a whole lot of tension in the combat in either of them especially SH2, so the idea of a game in the series fully embracing that gameplay as a means to an end and the tension is about running away is something I don't mind at all especially combined with the short length, map and easier puzzles.

If this was say a Resident Evil and Dead Space game with no combat, I would be much more annoyed since the combat in them I do enjoy.

Overall, I enjoyed Shattered Memories but as a weird experimental game especially before they became commonplace in gaming.

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines Review

I'm not 100% sure why I played this game. I do have some nostalgia for it since I recall playing it on PSP around the time of it's release, I recall not liking it at the time, but since I'm been on the Assassin's Creed binge and I felt somewhat nostalgic for it, I decided to play and finish it this time.

As a whole, I consider the game to be quite mediocre all though that just sums the franchise as a whole, however what prevents this game from being completely insufferable is the short length and how quickly everything moved by. If it weren't for this I would be much harsher.

Some good things about the game and this is going to sound weird since it's a PSP spinoff game based on a console franchise and a 3rd party one at that, are the controls. Surprisingly, the controls are not terrible and they felt reliable. I didn't even have to go into the PPSPP emulator settings to implement pseudo right stick controls. The vanilla controls I had an easy time getting used to. Whenever the game did feel awkward it was more due to the unpolished nature of the game or usual issues with the AC franchise than because of the default button mappings.

The camera as a whole did an okay enough job that I didn't need to actively turn the camera.

Music from AC1 is back and while it is lazy that they are just resuing the OST from that game, if I have to choose between possibly getting a forgettable original score or AC1's well made soundtrack, I choose the latter.

The "open world" is quick and easy to get around in and getting to mission objectives doesn't take that long. In fact it's almost like Thief Deadly Shadows' hub world minus the faction system rather than a traditional AC open world. Guards even get alerted when you enter the next zone if you are spotted in a previous one much like that game.

I do like how the game attempts to be a hybrid of AC1 and 2's mission structure where each memory block is an investigation but you do the missions in the latter game, it's an interesting concept.

The more linear missions leading up towards the assassination targets is quite nice since they feel like a journey of you slowly leading up towards the kill. They almost feel like Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trilogy levels on how there are establishing shots of the camera slowly showing where you are supposed to go before the guanlet starts. It's let down by the mechanics but more on that later.

This is where I get more negative, there is a lot of unpolish. I don't know how much of this is the emulation or the game itself but the climbing animations sometimes won't register, Altair will randomly stand for no reason when trying to mantle up the edge of a tall structure, there are invisible walls on objects close to him where he can't even touch them and how there are times where the near fall animation will activate when close to a platform and I want to jump but instead Altair will climb down when I didn't want him to.

The story isn't terrible but feels like a prolonged first episode of a 2nd season of the TV show where the plot doesn't truly pick up or get interesting towards the end. Maria has more character development and has more to do in the plot than Altair does. The part where Altair uses the Apple of Eden gets no build up at all. His philosophical monolgoues at the start of each chapter are interesting to listen to. The villains are mostly forgettable and never do enough to challenge or get in Altair's way to standout especially by comparison to AC1.

Biggest issues with the gameplay is with the series as a whole, sword fights are too easy since countering is the easiest solution out of everything and it's easier to wait for the enemies to attack and then counter them rather than you going on the offensive since you could get attacked from behind and lose health.

Bosses outside of The Bull and Bouchart are dull and can be beaten by blocking or countering. Bouchart can come a little out of nowhere since you can't damage him by countering and you need to dodge his strikes as well as his flame projectile later on. This might be the only part of the game where I had to sort of try.

Stealth isn't very good and despite many calling the franchise a "stealth series". You have no crouch button, no cover system, and no distractions or being able to bring enemies over to you. Trying to kill enemies up close is hoping their backs are turned or kill them from the front before the AI of nearby guards are alerted. This is AC before Unity after all.

You get caught? Well just get into the combat and start counter killing to your hearts' content, there is no consequences for being spotted unless if the game doesn't allow you to get caught for the mission much the console AC games.

There is unskippable cutscenes which is never good especially on repeated failures but that was during the occasional mandatory stealth.

Overall, parts of AC Bloodlines is impressive for a PSP game but is held back by unpolish and series flaws.