The Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels told a wonderful story about learning to accept you as yourself, for all the good and all the bad you’ve done. The Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World film doesn’t really capture that theme, but it at least makes up for it by showing us some action scenes of the likes we’ve never seen before. Both are excellent in their own right.

The Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game is…just a game. There’s not much to be to excited about; nothing groundbreaking that we haven’t seen before. Perhaps it’s unfair to hold the game to the same standard set forth by the comics and film. Disregarding even that, we’re still left with a game that does little to break the mold of mediocrity.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a beat ‘em up game which takes a lot of cues from old Technos Japan beat em’ ups such as River City Ransom and Double Dragon. The premise of these games is nothing new: you (and possibly your buddies) assume the role of a few dudes (and possibly chicks) and run around the world punching and kicking anything that’s hostile, for some reason. In this case, our reason is that the protagonist, Scott Pilgrim, is in love with a girl named Ramona Flowers.

Unfortunately, seven of her ex-boyfriends aren’t cool with that. Thus begins Scott’s adventure to kick the crap out of them to earn Ramona’s heart. Scott is accompanied in his quest by Ramona and his two good friends, Stephen Stills and Kim Pine. All I can think of, though, is that if the exes care so much, couldn’t Scott and his friends save themselves a lot of heartache by waiting for them to come and do something about it?

Scott and company have to mow down seven levels worth of baddies and boyfriends to finish the game. Along the way they level up, allowing them new abilities to use in combat ranging from dashing attacks to trick shots to grappling maneuvers. The level cap is 16, and they all learn their own unique ability once they hit the max level. Otherwise, the abilities they gain during level-ups are virtually identical.

Therein lies the first problem with the gameplay: all the characters are very similar. Each starts out with the ability to do weak and strong attacks, block, taunt, run, jump, side step, use objects as weapons, and do a cool cyclone attack that knocks enemies back. For the first fifteen levels, all characters learn the exact same maneuvers at the exact same points, with the only differences being in small things such at the ranges of attacks.

This is a bit of a bummer, because it quite clearly defines which characters are better than others extremely quick. The only unique abilities the characters have are the abilities they learn at Level 16 and one they buy at a shop later in the game, as well as their Striker attacks which allows a character to summon their friend Knives to do a unique action. Oh, and Ramona has the ability to conjure up objects to attack with, like bricks and baseball bats. Unvaried combat with distinct disparities in each characters’ utility. Strike one.

As I mentioned, there are shops in the game. They work pretty much exactly like River City Ransom, wherein each character has a few primary stats that are raised by purchasing items in the shops. As these stats don’t increase with Level-Ups, your stats are completely dependent on picking up money from enemies that you beat during the levels. Since stats can be leveled up in any order we choose, this creates a strange phenomenon where the game will suddenly go from challenging to easy after just one or two visits to the shop.

As soon as a player knows which stats are increased by which items, they can easily raise any stats important to their general strategy and instantly break the game. These items also don’t actually tell you what stats they raise until you’ve already purchased them. Pro tip: just because River City Ransom does it a certain way doesn’t mean you have to do it a certain way. Strike two.

Finally, the game mechanics are a bit sticky and poorly thought-out, particularly with regards to the start of the game. At the beginning of the game for example, all the characters are extremely slow – they move like snails and attack with no sense of urgency. Other design choices exacerbate this, such as hit stun leaving a character immobile for hours, or the fact that characters decide to take a nap every time they get knocked down.

The real kicker comes from the blocking mechanic, though. At Level 1, there are absolutely no ways to deal with blocking opponents other than to wait for them to stop blocking. At Level 6, characters finally get the ability to throw, mitigating the problem. Thus, it may not be a big deal to most people. Still, I don’t think it’s wrong to say that if you’re going to have a defensive mechanic implemented from the outset, there better be a way to deal with it from the outset. It doesn’t make the game hard, but all of these things can leave someone with the first impression that the game is extremely boring. In fact, I’d still say that while the game improves later, starting the game over is an absolute chore every time. Strike three.

Also, there’s no online co-op as the game is restricted to local co-op only. I get the idea of trying to encourage people to play it together in the same room, but it’s pretty arrogant to assume that everyone is going to have a set of friends who care enough to come over and play within a reasonable distance of my house. It’s a shame, too, because the game is ten times more fun in co-op. ..Strike four?

Still, it’s not as if Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World gets nothing right. What truly compelled me to keep playing this game was its impeccable sense of style. The game is presented graphically as a sort of Frankenstein combination of old 8-Bit NES games and early 1990′s coin-op games, realized by 2D sprite artist Paul Robertson. The music is composed by a band called Anamanaguchi, a band which combines the chiptune sounds of NES and Game Boy with rock instruments. I have no qualms, faults, or complaints whatsoever with the aesthetic direction of this game, and it’s by far the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

The Scott Pilgrim franchise is full of references to old video games from the late 80′s and early-to-mid 90′s; it’s undoubtedly a large part of its appeal to its target audience. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World tries desperately to remind gamers of a different time in video gaming history, where games were much simpler affairs. As for me, I’m reminded of the fact that video games based on IPs from other mediums, such as comics, movies, and TV, were absolutely terrible; but, we bought them because we didn’t know any better. Actually, I bought this game, so maybe I still haven’t learned my lesson.

In case you hadn’t heard, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger – a new fighting game from the dudes that brought us Guilty Gear – was released. Also, for those who missed it, it was pretty damn good. It had a lot to offer for casual players with its multitude of single player options and expansive story mode, and a great deal of depth and complexity for those who like to play fighting games for blood. I have to admit, though: I stopped playing it only two months after it came out. The reason? A sequel was announced – BlazBlue: Continuum Shift – which would be coming out in November 2009.

As a competitive player, it felt silly to practice the old version when a new version existed. Thankfully, Continuum Shift was announced for a console release, and the wait is finally over. If I may spoil my opinion on the game early, in my opinion, it’s virtually the same as the original, with some nice changes, and a few changes that made me go “Huh?” If you were a fan of Guilty Gear or the original BlazBlue, it goes without saying that you’ll enjoy the new iteration. So, instead of wasting time repeating all the basic impressions of the game, here’s what’s changed, along with my perspectives on it.

From a story perspective, Continuum Shift takes place only days after the events of the original, meaning that everyone has whole new story arcs to go through in the Story Mode. Personally, I can’t be asked to keep up with the needlessly convoluted story and cheesy-as-hell dialogue; but, if you enjoyed it before, it’s just as good now, and with a few improvements. Clearing a character’s story doesn’t require a character to see every single bit of dialogue, so now , all that’s needed to clear a story is to see each character’s good and bad endings, as well as their funny ending if they have one. Clearing certain characters’ story arcs unlocks the ‘True Ending’ sequence, and once that’s cleared, a new character is unlocked.

If that sounds like a chore, the option is always there to buy that character as DLC. There’s also a character which can be only be acquired by purchasing them for a whopping $7, which seems a bit…cruel. There are special versions of each character, along with the character acquired for beating the Story Mode, which can be purchased for a low price. If players don’t want to buy them, they can invest the time in unlocking them in the One-Player modes. However, having a character which can’t be unlocked, and costs the amount of money it would cost to get several of the special characters is discouraging.

Moving on, there are three new gameplay modes. First off is Legion Mode, a strange One-Player team battle mode. Players start out with one character, and move a cross a map to fight other ‘armies’. When the players beat an army, they can recruit one character from the enemy army, and also obtain the enemy army’s spot on the map. Legion Mode is won by occupying all spots on the map. I don’t really know if this is a well-fleshed out mode or anything; enemies don’t attempt to get space back, so it’s not actually a strategy game. It’s more like there’s a list of gangs to fight with and we choose which order we’d like to fight them in. Still it’s bound to attract people who enjoy achievements, because there’s an achievement for beating it on all three difficulties.

Next up is the Tutorial Mode. I can’t say enough about this; it’s quite excellent. It not only explains all the game basics and the myriad of game mechanics that are specific to only BlazBlue, but it also teaches some very important general strategies which can be applied to all fighting games. As it teaches new concepts (split into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced), it allows players to try and practice the concepts at the same time. The Tutorial also has a character-specific section which, although the information is great, glosses over the information a bit quickly. It’s useful, but unlike the thorough basic tutorials, expect to have to re-read these ones.

The last of the new gameplay modes is the Challenge Mode. Taking a cue from Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue‘s Challenge Mode gives each character a set of ‘Missions’ in which they learn all about the crazy things a character can do. It starts out simple, with just an overview of the character’s special moves and supers. Then, it starts moving into the combos, which can (and will) ramp up in difficulty very quickly.

I hesitate to say that this is a good mode for a casual player, because these combos are the real thing. Being able to not only execute these combos, but recall and use them in a real match, is a great feat. The combos seen in Challenge Mode (or at least, the concepts behind them) are what’s being used in high-level play, so you’re well on your way if you can do them. It’s a nice change from Street Fighter 4‘s Challenge Mode, which had a few practical things mixed in with a lot of wacky, exotic crap.

Speaking of difficulty, that’s probably the biggest gameplay hurdle. BlazBlue’s gameplay works very well for casual players, because of the simple button interface and ‘Drive’ Attacks, the ‘Do Cool Stuff’ button which does different, unique things for each character. It’s easy for beginners to feel competent when a button does complicated things for them. This isn’t a slight against beginners or BlazBlue, in my opinion; it’s a definite plus.

However, for anyone wanting to break into competitive play, there’s a huge execution barrier to be broken through. If a player is smart at general fighting game concepts but is unable to pull of the more advanced combo attacks, they’ll get steamrolled for not being able to dish out enough damage. Thus, BlazBlue really stinks for the mid-level players, struggling get their wings as they figure out all the specific timings and combinations of their favorite characters.

Speaking of characters, there’s a few new ones. Besides the DLC-only character, Makoto, and Mu-12, the character unlocked for beating the Story Mode, there’s also two new characters playable from the start, named Tsubaki and Hazama: those who played the original might remember them from the Story Mode. The new characters fit well into the lineup, being neither overpowered nor excessively weak.

All the returning characters got plenty of changes, too. There were a lot of really cool changes, but Continuum Shift unfortunately follows the Guilty Gear trend of buffing the worst character too much, while nerfing the best characters into oblivion. Rachel, the best character in the original, is almost certainly the worst character in Continuum Shift, while some of the weaker characters like Bang and Hakumen are now really powerful. Characters who weren’t even particularly strong before, like Noel, also got hit really hard with the nerf stick. Balance is a tricky thing to discuss in a review, because it’s dynamic. For the time being though, while the balance isn’t terrible, there are more than a few perplexing changes, to be sure.

There are a few changes to general gameplay, as well. The Guard Libra system, a meter which showed how much one character was blocking over the other (like a tug-o-war), has been replaced by Guard Primers. Each character has a specific amount of Guard Primers, which are lost when blocking certain attacks. Once a character loses their last Guard Primer, their guard is broken, leaving them open to an attack. This change is wonderful, because it allows characters’ defenses to be more specifically tailored.

Bursts, special maneuvers which can be done to knock opponents back, are reworked to be more like how they worked in Guilty Gear. Players start out with one burst, and get a second one after losing a round. Bursts can be carried over from previous rounds, and thankfully no longer force players to take extra damage afterwards. If a player uses a Burst during hitstun/blockstun, their character’s max Guard Primers are reduced by half for the remainder of the round. These reworkings are wonderful, as they were the two mechanics in the original BlazBlue that didn’t seem to be backed by a lot of careful forethought.

Lastly, there’s a big change to the way ranked matches are done. People wanting to play on ranked now search for opponents using a number of specifications, including area, rating, and connection speed. However, instead of showing a list of available players, Ranked Matches will now pair players up with someone at random. Once that happens, a player can’t back out. Both of these seem a bit ridiculous. The only problem with ranked in the original was that people could spam challenges on a player who didn’t want to match with them. Instead, ranked has been remade for the worse, and it’s already hard to find opponents. Thankfully, quarter matches are still very easy to find.

That’s BlazBlue: Continuum Shift in a nutshell. It still has the same fast-paced, frenetic gameplay that emulated crazy anime action scenes. Now, it just brings a ton of new modes and same balance changes to the tables. The only thing that’s definitively worse about Continuum Shift is the ranked matchmaking, but I doubt that will stop people from playing the game online if they really want to.  There was no reason for fighting game fans to pass up the first installment, and there’s even less reason to now. Do it.

After playing Panzer Dragoon Saga, I found myself a bit torn. Here was a game from the Sega Saturn widely heralded by RPG fanatics as one of the greatest games in the genre, and it didn’t completely blow my mind. It’s my own fault;  no one is immune to the unstoppable force of the hype machine, and I came into the experience with preconceived notions after hearing for years that it sits pretty amongst the best games in the genre. I’ve recently replayed Final Fantasy 7 – the other ‘big deal’ JRPG of that console generation – and though it’s not a personal favorite, it’s easy to see how it maintains its place as one of the best JRPGs ever made. I have trouble saying that PDS withstood the test of time as well as other RPG greats.

And yet, there’s no doubting that Panzer Dragoon Saga is a very good game. It’s easily the best RPG I’ve played on the Saturn, and one of the best RPGs of its generation. As the third installment of a series that started out (and continued afterward) as rail shooters, PDS combines unique gameplay with its own brand of original storytelling and style. You’ve probably never played anything quite like it, and unfortunately you probably never will. Unless, of course, you’re playing this very game.

Players assume the role of Edge, a mercenary guarding a remote excavation site for a huge kingdom known as ”The Empire,” which is assuming control over most of the civilized world. The Empire had been looking for something at this site for many years, and suddenly, it had finally been found in the form of a pale, otherworldly woman. No sooner is the discovery made than an Imperial captain by the name of Craymen shows up with his fleet, kills off all the guards and hightails it with the woman, betraying The Empire. Edge miraculously survives the attack and is found by a Dragon, who mysteriously chooses Edge to be his rider. Now equipped with the means to exact his revenge, Edge seeks out Craymen. His goal is complicated a bit by The Empire, which now seeks to capture Edge’s Dragon for no other reason than to bolster its own military might.

While the premise is nothing we haven’t seen before, it’s made effective for many reasons. The atmosphere and general aesthetic is one; Panzer Dragoon Saga‘s art style and music give the world a dull look…in a good way. I’ve heard many people say that the game has a feeling of loneliness or solitude, but that doesn’t seem quite right; Edge meets a decent amount of people on his quest, so he’s not that lonely. To me, it seems more like a sense of tragedy or hopelessness. Tragedy strikes from the get go, and I always got the feeling the game was warning me not to continue, in light of more calamity. The emotions are negative, but the power of the game to invoke these feelings within me is a plus – make no mistake.

Also, while it’s true that Edge meets a lot of people, he only interacts at length with a handful of them. We don’t learn much about where these characters are going or where they’ve been. We’re not saving every town from some sort of monster problem and becoming their glorified saviors. Many people, I feel, would view this as a negative for an RPG, but I see this as a positive. It feels more real to only reach a personal level with a select few. On the flipside, it’s equally real to have people hate Edge for no reason other than programmed prejudice (and continue to hate him for the entirety of the story). This mirrors real human interaction more closely than other game narratives to me. Video games might be escapist entertainment to an extent, but it’s hard to want to escape to a land where no one acts anything like how I’ve seen humans actually act. Panzer Dragoon Saga succeeds with flying colors in this regard, as well.

So, what’s wrong with the story? The beginning was intense, and the end was just as riveting. The middle, however, is just a jumble of seemingly unimportant events other than the occasional interaction with Azel, the woman who was unearthed at the beginning. Panzer Dragoon Saga is an extremely short game – I finished it in about twelve and a half hours – and I’m surprised it managed to find time to send me on silly fetch quests in the interim. I’ll begrudgingly admit that some important things happen during these fetch quests, but I don’t buy that there was no better way to push the story along.

Gameplay in general is a pretty mixed bag. When Edge navigates the field, he sometimes moves on foot or with his dragon. For the most part, it’s standard RPG fare. However, when on the back of the dragon, moving through the map is cool, as players can be required to move forward and backward as well as upward or downward in altitude. It’s not going to be the game’s selling point or anything, but it was certainly a nice touch.

On the other hand, dungeon design in PDS is pretty awful. The first few dungeons were excellently designed with small puzzles and easy-to-navigate areas. This sets the pace for something completely unlike the rest of the game, where the dungeons consist of either endless samey-looking corridors or extremely wide open fields, wherein Edge has to comb the entire map to find any points of interest. It was pretty disappointing to see the quality of dungeons take such a huge nosedive, even if the focus of the gameplay is supposed to be combat.

Speaking of which, PDS has a neat take on combat. Edge has three gauges in combat. They fill up slowly over time, and Edge can take an action as long as one is filled up (some actions cost two bars). There are  three types of attacks: Edge’s gun attack which focuses fire on a single target, the dragon’s laser which spreads damage to many targets, and Berserks, which are the equivalent of magic spells. There are also four “quadrants” in each battle – in front of enemies, behind enemies, or to the left and right sides – which Edge can move through freely. Lastly, Edge can change his dragon’s form during battle by raising one of the dragon’s parameters at the cost of lowering another. For example, by switching the dragon to an attack form by raising its attack power, its magic power will decrease, causing spells to be less effective and cost more MP.

These elements come together to make an absolutely brilliant battle system. The switching of dragon forms allows players to use their own personal favorite strategies, while also allowing on-the-fly decisions. Depending on the enemy Edge faces, some quadrant positions are more dangerous, while some are completely safe. Certain enemies have weak points which can be accessed from certain sides, usually from the same side where they can unleash their strongest attacks. The semi real-time combat, along with the quadrant system, forces players to think about their positioning relative to the enemies and places an emphasis on well-timed attacks – something which more RPGs ought to incorporate.

Conceptually, this is an amazing battle system. The problem is that PDS never really takes full advantage of the strategic nature of the combat. For starters, enemies in random battles are usually easy enough to kill without even paying attention until near the end of the game. PDS nobly tries to give players incentive to do well anyways by awarding bonus experience for winning swiftly with a minimum amount of damage. Even so, it’s not really that tough to earn bonus experience in most battles, even without trying too hard. Boss battles can be more entertaining, but still fall short. They seem to be more in line with how I imagined the random battles should be; while not obscenely hard, they did punish me for trying to get away with mashing attack buttons while talking to people on the phone. Even so, I only lost two battles in this game, and both of them were complete flukes. The difficulty could have been ramped up a bit.

It’s easy to see why Saturn fans hold Panzer Dragoon Saga in such high regard. It’s easily the best RPG I’ve played on the Saturn, and I bet I would have been infatuated with it if I had played it back in the time of its release. It’s too bad that a few things hold it back. Worse yet is the fact that we’ll probably never see this game re-released; even the director of the game said that if he had the chance, he would remake it as a shooter game. That’s a damn shame. No, I probably wouldn’t say that PDS is still one of the best RPGs ever made, but it’s not hard to imagine a game with the same style, tone, and combat system becoming a huge hit nowadays. I hope someday, somebody realizes just how ahead of the curve this game was in the innovation department, runs with those ideas, and creates the unparalleled masterpiece that PDS has been hinting at for all this time.

Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow is another attempt to legitimize Blue Dragonas a franchise worth taking seriously. I’m not sure why Mistwalker is so hell bent on the idea of making more games for this series. When has a children’s story even been good when the original idea was taken and expanded upon several times? Who honestly thought The Neverending Story III was anywhere near as good as the original (which was probably good because it was based on a Children’s fantasy novel to begin with)?

The game opens with two purple-skinned people with long pointy ears awakening from a deep sleep. They portend hints of something big about to happen, thanks to some mysterious scheme they’ve been planning. I don’t really remember much of this scene because it was a lot of abstract foreshadowing, but one thing stood out to me: the purple girl says some snide comment to the dude, to which he replies something along the lines of “That cavalier tone of yours hasn’t changed since ancient times.” Well, duh! She’s been asleep for who knows how long; what kind of significant personality changes could she have possibly undergone?

This is the level of sophistication we’re dealing with in the writing. I don’t have any qualms with a narrative being less mature. The original Blue Dragon reminded me an awful lot of the days when I used to watch Saturday morning cartoons. However, the original also had a script that was charming, and not full of exceedingly contrived and stupid comments. It didn’t insult its audience, which is why it was more captivating to watch the heroes as they journeyed to new lands and met new people.

What’s worse, all the Blue Dragon games up to this point have been handled by completely different localization teams, which causes a bit of inconsistency. If characters had a certain manner of speech in one game, they might have a completely different way of speaking in another game. If a word was pronounced in a certain way by the voice actors in one game, it may have a different pronunciation now. This may not be a big deal to newcomers, but to people who played either of the other games, this may raise a few eyebrows.

Speaking of which, if you’re a newcomer, good luck understanding the story. BD:AS brings back tons of old characters (and incidentally, almost no new ones to speak of but the villains), and picks up where the last game left off. If you don’t know what’s going on then have fun making heads or tails of the story, or even caring about it. Some series of games, like Ace Attorney, do a good job of filling you in on any events from past games that you’ll need to know to appreciate the game, allowing players to jump in at any point. BD:AS (and its predecessor for that matter) expect you to play through the previous games or take weekly seminars on Blue Dragon canon.

Anyways, the gameplay is very basic action RPG style. Press one button to attack. Players can press it multiple times to make a combo, or hold the button to use a spell, after which they need to wait a set amount of time before casting another one. Players can only equip a few spells to their character. Lastly, there’s a button to roll. It doesn’t make you invulnerable, so it’s honestly just…a roll. That’s it. Attack, combo, and roll. Those are the combat controls in their entirety.

That simplicity is what makes the game so completely bland. While it’s true that sometimes less is more, sometimes less really is just less; that’s the case with BD:AS. Players have a party of three, but can only control one character. When all we can do is attack, cast a spell sometimes, and…roll, it’s natural to ask for a little more. It’s not really safe or fun to go bonkers attacking an enemy because it doesn’t stop them from attacking you. The roll is completely ridiculous, because it doesn’t work as an evasion maneuver: it’s not impervious, and even better, if an enemy is preparing to attack, they will correct the direction they’re facing if you try and roll out of the way. Thus, it’s only worth a damn if you use it at the exact moment your opponent is about to strike.

Sure, there’s a lot of cool ideas with the level-up system and stats. There are many characters, but instead of leveling up characters, they have their own individual proficiencies. Alternatively, there are a variety of shadows players can equip to characters. These shadows have their own stats and spells, which increase as they level up. Characters also have a particular shadow they can use especially well, making the task of selecting a party into a pretty strategic process. Even equipping spells is done in a neat way; instead of only being able to equip the spells of your shadow, all the known spells of the shadows in your party are pooled, and players can mix and match the spells on one person. Thus, if you have the Dragon shadow and the Bull shadow in your party, a character can equip a spell from each.

Still, this winds up being all for naught, because when it comes down to it, players are just attacking, casting a spell sometimes, and…rolling. To make matters worse, the AI is completely braindead; if your main character manages to get killed in battle, you can be sure that the two computer-controller characters will fall in a matter of seconds. In fact, they die frequently even if you live. However, since characters who die in BD:AS get up after a fixed amount of time, you can make enemies give chase to you until one of your pals gets up. Your pals don’t make any attempt to survive or dodge anything, so don’t count on them for much. Finally, as the cherry on top, when a shadow levels up in battle, players temporarily lose control of their character for a few seconds. The enemies, on the other hand, do not wait for you to finish celebrating, so you better hope you’re not on the brink of death when you level up.

Is Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow a bad game? No, not really. Is it a fun game? No, not really. What it is, though, is one of the most boring games I’ve played in recent memory. It’s a shame, because there were some really good ideas being tossed around in the various gameplay systems. My advice to Mistwalker, free of charge: take all those good ideas, and append them to a better game. And for Pete’s sake, stop making more Blue Dragongames! I don’t believe in fate or destiny – a bit weird, considering the sheer number of JRPGs I play – but I think if something isn’t working out, don’t try and force it to work. Just move on.

Defense of the Ancients is a custom game made in Warcraft 3. Its level of popularity is staggering; people have been playing it non-stop for years, tournaments are held for DotA in all corners of the world, and if you were to log onto Warcraft 3 and look for games online, over half the games you find will be DotA. Best of all, if you have Warcraft 3 – it’s “free” (of course you paid for Warcraft 3, right?).

It was only a matter of time before game developers got the bright idea to turn the addictive gameplay of DotA into a commercial game and make some serious profit from it. Sure, we already have Demigod and League of Legends, which borrow from the formula of DotA, but Heroes of Newerth is the first such game to actually try mimicking DotA as closely as possible.

Those who have played DotA will already understand how Heroes of Newerth works. For the uninitiated, though, it works like this: there are two teams of five players, each placed on two sides of an expansive map. There are three lanes – roads that lead from one base to the other – on the map. Computer-controlled ”Creeps” spawn every so often on each lane from both teams, which march down the path and attack anything on the opposing team. Each player chooses a hero at the start of the game, each with its own unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Heroes level up over time by killing enemy creeps and other heroes.

The object of the game is to press forward into the enemy’s base and destroy their Throne. Each team has defensive towers on their side of the map, making it difficult to simply waltz into the enemy base. To add to that, players aren’t allowed to destroy buildings out of order, so even if you somehow made it into their base early in the game, their Throne will be invincible because the outer defensive structures haven’t been destroyed. Each team therefore has to slowly build their strength, level up, and press through the defensive structures before finally making it into the enemy base to destroy their Throne.

Each hero has four different skills which they can make stronger as they level up. These skills help shape the role that a hero plays in battle. Heroes with direct damage spells tend to be very powerful and crucial early on in the game, but since skills can only be leveled up a few times, they lose their effectiveness later on. On the other hand, heroes who specialize in direct combat tend to be weaker in the earlier stages of the game, but their usefulness scales upwards exponentially as the game continues.

Heroes also have three stats which increase as they gain levels: Strength, Agility, and Intelligence. These stats affect a Hero’s Hit Points, the speed of their attacks, and their Mana Pool respectively. Each unit has a primary attribute, which tends to hint at their roles; Intelligence heroes are generally spellcasters, Agility heroes tend to specialize in dealing damage with their attacks, and Strength heroes are good at taking damage. The damage of a hero’s attack increases by raising their primary attribute.

Adding a big layer of complexity is the game’s item system. When a Hero kills a Creep or an enemy Hero, they receive gold (all players also earn one gold per second), allowing them to buy items which raise their stats, give them better armor, allow them to regenerate HP faster, and a variety of other effects. Also, powerful items can be crafted by combining lesser items contained in a “recipe”. The methods for creating these special items are all laid out for you to see at any point during the game.

These will combine the various items you’ve bought into more powerful items which augment their bonuses even more, or can even grant the Hero a new ability. Understanding which items to buy for each Hero is crucial.

Up to this point, it might feel like you’re reading an instruction manual, because I haven’t really given any opinions on the game. Here’s the thing: Heroes of Newerth receives continuous patch updates. So, after players buy the game, they are constantly given new content in the form of new Heroes and balance tweaks to existing characters and items. S2 Games says that they plan to update it consistently for the foreseeable future, so while the game is going to keep changing, the score I give the game will stay the same.

That just doesn’t seem right. I could tell you that some Heroes are way too powerful, while other Heroes stand no chance. I could tell you about the items that are so good that you’d have to be criminally insane not to get them every time. I could tell you about the variety of weird glitches, or how the tutorial is too basic. However, it seems downright irresponsible to make a judgment about the minutia of the game in its current state when a patch could come out tomorrow, making it the most balanced and awesome game of all time. It reflects poorly on me, and it’s not fair to the developers, either.

So, instead of critiquing those things, I’ll critique Heroes of Newerth based on the factors that will surely remain static and unchanged throughout its lifespan. HoN is an extremely difficult game to get into. There’s a steep learning curve, since players need to take the time to figure out what all the Heroes are capable of (sixty-five and counting, so get practicing).

The item system is cool, but it requires a lot of memorization and learning what items can be made into better special items. Even moreso, it’s not easy to figure out what the most important items are for each character. To make it even more confusing, the dynamic nature of HoN means that an item that might help you in one match could be completely useless in another. It takes time to figure all of this out. Lots of it.

If the steep learning curve wasn’t enough, you’ll probably be playing with a bunch of random jerks on the Internet. The Heroes of Newerth community consists of a bunch of really angry nerds who think they know everything, and won’t hesitate to call you every name in the book if you’re not playing to their standards – whether or not they are any good. Unless you can convince your friends to play with you (and you have four of them), you’re at the mercy of chance with at least a few of your teammates.

And yet, if you’re willing to take the time to learn how all of the Heroes work, get a grasp of the item system, and step your game up, Heroes of Newerth can be an extremely fun experience, unlike any other multiplayer outing there is (except DotA, naturally). There’s a lot of crap to wade through, but if you’re willing to work past all the initial barriers, Heroes of Newerth can easily make all of those hardships feel worth the effort.

The Ace Attorney series is almost a decade old, and we’ve been receiving them since 2005. What can really be said about any of the original games that hasn’t been said already? Even if the WiiWare version is “new”, reviewing it feels like I’m the last person to learn about a big rumor in my circle of friends.

I’m telling them all about it with excitement as they stare at me with disbelief that I could have possibly not known yet. Imagine if I posted a review for Super Mario Bros. tomorrow; would you read that review to learn more about the game? To a smaller extent, that’s my current predicament.

Anyways, bear with me while I tell the general gaming public everything they’ve known about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulationsfor many years. If you missed the boat somehow, or never owned a DS, perhaps this will be enlightening. As a bonus, I’ll tell you all about the WiiWare port. Just try and forget for a moment that a quick glance at any review of the earlier WiiWare ports will tell you everything you need to know already.

AA:T&T’s gameplay remains faithful to the series’s text-adventure style, where we assume the role of defense attorney Phoenix Wright as he defends clients facing trumped-up murder charges. There are two gameplay modes: the investigation phases, where we question witnesses for vital information and examine the crime scene and other vital areas for clues and evidence. And secondly, the trial phases, which consist of logic battles with witnesses in court. Here, we listen to the testimony and use the evidence to expose any lies or falsities in their statements. Eventually, this leads us to exonerating our defendant while indicting someone else.

The main gameplay features of the previous game return, including the incremental lifebar (allowing for the penalty of presenting wrong evidence to be adjustable) and Psyche-Locks, a special segment of the investigation phase that acts as a sort of miniature trial phase. When a witness is lying or withholding information, Phoenix can confront them with evidence to force the truth out of them.

New to our third installment is…well, nothing. Of all the games in the series, Trials & Tribulationsis the only one that brings absolutely no new gameplay elements to the table. This game could have been DLC if the games were originally released in this day and age.

This means, of course, that the game needs to hold itself up on its story alone. Unfortunately, I would say that T&T has a pretty weak overarching story. It deals mostly with random skeletons in Phoenix’s closet, as well as the mystery of our new antagonistic prosecuting attorney du jour, Godot.

Godot is probably the biggest killing blow of the entire narrative, as he is completely absurd and unbelievable. He talks in stupid proverbs, throws big fits, acts like no real person would, and is probably the biggest rebel without a cause I’ve ever seen, both in reality or fiction.

We eventually find out his reason for hating Phoenix, which might have been believable if Godot were a thirteen year old boy, but alas, he’s not. Add in some huge plot holes in the cases themselves, and we have a pretty boring ride for the most part.

As with the other WiiWare ports, T&Tdoesn’t really do anything with the game except allow for motion controls (now you can pretend to throw evidence in a witness’s face…although I think that was unintentional) and multiple save slots. Otherwise, the graphics and gameplay are unchanged, and even the typographical and grammatical errors from the DS version remain intact. If we waited so long for this port, why didn’t those at least get fixed?

That’s pretty much all there is to it. People who enjoyed this game before already know if they’re going to buy this, and I imagine anyone who has avoided the games thus far are not going to change their mind. Perhaps this will appeal to…I don’t know, Wii owners who don’t have a DS? Either way, the boring cases, ridiculous (or, should I say, more ridiculous than usual) characters, and the lack of any cool gameplay elements we didn’t see in the previous installment make this game a borefest.

If you’re seriously fixing to play an adventure game, why not try the first two games, instead?

I recently finished playing Rocket Knight, an action platformer game that is easily one of my best experiences with a game on Xbox Live Arcade. After happily writing the review for it, I quickly learned what other people were saying about it: “Fifteen dollars is too much money for just two hours of gameplay. Is it really worth the money? I think maybe my cash is better spent on a longer game.” Even critics give the same opinion. I found a review that gave it an average score when the only bad thing the critic had to say about it was that it cost too much.

At first, this reaction made me fly into a frenzy of nerd-rage so extreme that my mom would have had to come out and tell me to “cool it” if I still lived with her. “How can somebody put a price tag on fun!?” I thought to myself as I smashed the nearest coke can. After having a few days to think about it, though, I realized that I should be asking a different question to gamers (and critics) with the “pricetag on fun” mentality:

“How would your perspective on games change if they were all free?” Join me as I take a theoretical look into how the landscape of gaming would change if developers still received money for “sales,” but all games were free, forcing gamers to think about how they want to spend their time on video games – not their money.

Sandbox Games

I predict that sandbox games would become immensely less popular. This is by no means because gamers would enjoy them less, but because Pricetag Gamers would feel less obligated to buy them to get their money’s worth. We’d see a lot more interesting ideas from sandbox games to get peoples’ attention.

No more droves of “being gangsters/cops while driving cars in the city and shooting people” settings. We’d probably see a lot more wacky sandbox games like Chibi-Robo!, demonstrating that a big city is not the only way to have a vast, open game world to explore.

JRPGs

Fans of the genre would realize that JRPGs are absolute garbage in their current state. Their charade being up, developers would finally have to explore new territory, and they evolve into a state of gameplay more advanced than what we saw in 1987.

Gamers who falsely thought that JRPGs were dead because they played Final Fantasy 13 and didn’t like it would discover that FF13 was just different and mediocre. Oh, and they would finally be much shorter, now that we won’t feel cheated unless we receive sixty hour-long epics.

Retro Games

Gamers may or may not get more irritable with the intentionally antiquated conventions of retro games. Games like Cave Story, which mix the feel of the old school with the design smarts of the new school, would reign supreme.

Since gamers want to enjoy the nostalgic feelings they get without paying the price of a full retail game for something like Mega Man 10, developers would find it much less risky to make retro games, and we’d probably see an even larger amount of games in this style.

Fighting Games

Gamers, no longer having to spend money on Fighters, would stop pissing and moaning about having to pay money for a new iteration of a game that they are positive should have been DLC. (It also might occur to them that they had been paying for the same game with every new Madden release, but that’s probably wishful thinking.)

Developers would now feel free to expand upon their games. It would no longer be as dangerous to spend lots of time adding new characters, content, and gameplay changes to any one game. This is a win-win situation for developers, casual gamers, and competitive gamers alike.

Shovelware, and other assorted awful games based on cartoons

…Actually, these could probably be a lot worse than they are now. These games thrive on uninformed parents buying them, and kids not knowing any better to want them. If they were free, these guys might be the richest people in the business. That’s the one thing about this ideal world that I think would be far less ideal. On the other hand, does it matter? The amount of great games would have increased by so much, who cares if there were still crappy ones?

If you’re reading this and thinking, “No way, dude. Free games would inspire devs to make crappy products,” I would have to say that’s an ignorant and presumptuous argument to take. It’s not something one does for the money, but for the love of the craft. If anything, the current business model is the one that truly forces game developers to rely on established franchises and safe gameplay mechanics in the face of taking real chances with their work.

And there you have it. All your favorite games will still be there, and will probably still be made. Many genres of games will be forced to improve and diversify immediately. Game critics will critique games based on their merits, not their price. The gaming landscape has infinitely improved. And honestly, what did it take? Nothing more than a change of perspective. In this “ideal” world, we had no choice to take on this perspective, because free games were the norm. In our world, we have a choice to look at games as time investments – not monetary investments. So, how about it? Wanna make games better?

Considering how gamers go gaga over retro games, I’m surprised that Konami isn’t getting a lot of props. Over the last few years, they’ve done two retro revivals of Contra and Castlevania, along with Gradius and the relatively obscure Vandal Hearts series. Now, Konami has given us Rocket Knight, a game tasked with rebooting a seventeen year-old franchise that only saw modest success in its early days.

Personally, I never thought the Rocket Knight Adventures series was anything special; the controls were too wonky, and the camera moving only left and right made the game feel too claustrophobic. Thankfully, the team behind Rocket Knight understood this, and addressed both of those problems, while adding a few new moves for our hero to perform. Now, we’re in business; this is definitely what the Rocket Knight Adventures series was always striving for.

Just like the previous entries, Rocket Knight‘s story involves our hero, Sparkster the Rocket Knight, defending his native land of Zephyrus from a horde of anthropomorphic animals. RKA1 saw us fighting off pigs, and RKA2 decided on lizards. This time, our invaders du jour are a kingdom of evil wolves. Sparkster will have to deal with them using only his sword, his rocket armor, and a variety of special moves that are so excessively awesome and fun to pull off that they ought to be illegal.

Aside from using simple melee and projectile attacks, Sparkster can also do a stationary spinning cartwheel, use his rockets for a small boost in his jump, and even use his sword to reflect certain enemy projectiles back at them with hilarious results. The most fun to be had with Sparkster though – and the staple attack of the entire series – is the Rocket Burst attack. Sparkster can use it to jet forward at incredible speeds in any direction, simultaneously taking out all foes that stand in his way. Besides going through almost every enemy attack in the game, it can be used to bounce off walls or even break through them! Clearly, the rocket boost has a lot of utility.

Beyond the typical platforming levels, there are also shoot ‘em up levels a la Gradius where Sparkster flies across the skies, taking down enemies in a series of dogfights. Here, Sparkster can fire a normal shot or a charged laser shot that can take down several enemies at once. He can also use the rocket armor to boost his speed while flying in any direction at all. In both gameplay modes, any maneuver that uses the rocket armor – which is damn near everything – depletes from the “Burst Meter”, a gauge that depletes as moves are exectuted, but quickly recharges. This prevents outright spamming of certain moves while ensuring players can still perform them very frequently.

The key to this game’s brilliance doesn’t lie in any new gameplay concept, but a combination of new features and refinement of old concepts from the previous games. The single most important change is that the camera can move in all directions instead of just left and right, allowing for far more interesting level designs that really take advantage of the Rocket Burst move. Now, there’s a good mix of action-platforming mixed in with exploration for a full package.

The controls are done very well on console, with just about every function in the game being available on the front buttons and the shoulder buttons – a minor convenience that goes a long way in giving the players a feeling of absolute control. There’s never a time when I make a technical error that feels like it was a fault of weird or unresponsive controls. While this sounds like a silly thing to praise, it never speaks well for a game if it feels like the mistakes are never your fault; an indication that the controls and interface could use some improvement. I submit that Rocket Knight has absolutely no need for improvement in this regard whatsoever.

The attention paid to these two things make Rocket Knight feel fluid, fast, and fun. There’s a level of excitement I have when controlling Sparkster, zipping across chasms and through the skies, and running enemies through with my sword; a feeling I don’t get from a lot of other games. It’s been quite a while since I last played a game that made me happy enough to laugh out loud, without any jokes to try and get a rise out of me. RK accomplishes this, and with such simple changes!

There are two different ways of playing the game: Arcade Mode, which plays like a typical old-school platformer (simply go through all the levels in sequence until the game is finished) or Free Play mode, which allows players to select any stage in the game and play it. The Free Play mode allows not only for practice of any level the player might find too difficult, but also allows players to refine their strategies for a speed or score run for the leaderboards.

The only complaint I have about this game is that the Normal Mode is too easy. Screw all the complaints about game length – the game takes about two hours to beat, and then you can replay it on two harder difficulties. That’s fine with me. No, the real problem is that Normal Mode is an absolute cakewalk, and Hard Mode has to be unlocked. From the start, the player can only play the first set of stages in Hard Mode.

When a boss is reached, players have to find a special technique for damaging the boss with their own attacks to unlock the next set of stages in Hard Mode. This is just plain weird, and I would have rather just been allowed to play Hard Mode (which is more akin to what I expected from Normal Mode) from the get go. Beating Hard Mode unlocks “Gold Sparkster Mode”, which is the true Hard Mode; rather than just using more clever enemy placement, players will have half the life they normally did, and bosses will take much longer to be brought down.

Color me impressed. I really feel like retro games are improving all the time. Although I’m on record as a retro-hater, I absolutely love games that take gameplay ideas from the old days and use the advanced technology at their disposal to improve upon them, and Rocket Knight is a perfect example of this. It’s definitely one of the best platformer games I’ve played in years, and is without a doubt one of the best downloadable titles I’ve ever played (what a shocker!).

Robert Boyd, creator of Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, is quite the RPG connoisseur; at least, I’d imagine that anyone who makes a blog about game design theory and references Vay is more than merely dabbling in the genre. Seeing a game made in the classic JRPG style from someone who knows his stuff is refreshing. BoDVII is a game that revels in the old-school JRPG experience while always keeping in mind what other JRPG developers seem to forget: that the old model can be made better.

The game starts out by explaining that the world is no longer populated by humans, thanks to a huge war that eradicated life as we know it. Instead, we live in the age of undead prosperity. Zombies, Skeletons, Ghosts, and Vampires live together peacefully. Suddenly, ‘evil’ is coming back to the world, and it’s up to Dem, the skeleton knight, to stop… the evil. It’s a little abstract, isn’t it?

Okay, so the story isn’t going to blow your mind. In fact, BoDVII does the “suddenly reveal everything at the end” hooplah that I’ve always found to be too sudden and rushed to enjoy. I don’t think it was really meant to change the world, though. Instead, Breath of Death VII is meant to bring laughs and poke fun at the RPG genre (in case it wasn’t obvious by the name). This is mostly accomplished in two ways: by satirizing RPG tropes, and by using a lot of cheap nods to other RPGs.

The latter is really not my style. For one, it’s a bit alienating for people who don’t play a lot of RPGs. For example, I wonder how many people will undersand the “Langsong” reference? Additionally, they just rely entirely upon the player knowing the reference to be funny; in other words, they are generally not funny in the context of the game.

The weirdest thing is that Breath of Death is hilarious. When it focuses on satire, the writing really shines. Thankfully, there’s plenty of good humour, and the throwaway references don’t feel like a crutch in the place of solid jokes.

The gameplay in general mimicks the old Dragon Warrior-style of RPGs; there’s a bird’s eye view world map where everything looks happy, some beautiful towns, dark caves, and a solid black combat screen comprised mostly of large menu boxes. Combat also builds upon the Dragon Warrior style, with basic fight/magic. The wonder of the gameplay lies in how streamlined it is, though.

Dem can move around extremely quickly on the world map, in dungeons or in towns. The encounter rate is vastly better than most JRPGs, which works in tandem with Dem’s super speed to give players a sense that they’re actually making progress in a dungeon. Each dungeon also has a ‘random battle counter’, where after a certain quota of random battles has been met, players can walk through the dungeons freely (although players can choose to fight a battle through the menu).

It’s funny how just a few things like this can take an otherwise stale, monotonous genre and do a lot to make it more enjoyable. Breath of Death keeps the pace moving fast and keeps the game proportionally short. The game abstract on Xbox Live Indie says “4-6 hours of gameplay”, and that seems about right. I don’t need – and rarely want – a long, drawn-out epic adventure. I’d rather just have a good experience, no matter how long it is, and I feel like BoDVII would agree (if it could be personified, of course).

Combat is only troubled by one thing, though, and that would be the difficulty. To be frank, it’s a very easy game. As long I made sure to fight enough battles to buy the latest equipment in towns, I was able to steamroll every enemy I came across. It’s too bad; there’s a cool level-up system where players have to pick and choose between certain abilities or stat bonuses.

There’s even a combo meter, which counts the number of attacks the party has made during a fight and uses that number to amplify the damage of certain attacks. It all seems for naught, though, when every random battle can be finished by flipping out on the ‘A’ Button, and boss battles can be finished in about two turns.

And yet, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning still manages to be impressive by adding just a few subtle touches that aren’t seen in commercial JRPGs. Combine that with some genuinely funny dialogue, and we have ourselves a solid game. The lack of challenge is regrettable, but this is more of an inherent problem with vanilla turn-based combat than it is a serious blunder in design choice. Robert Boyd knows his stuff. I’m willing to bet that when he really tries to innovate a combat system, it will be a sight to behold. For now, though, Breath of Death serves as a wonderful sneak preview of good things to come.

Gamer Limit gives Breath of Death VII: The Beginning a 8/10.

I’m not sure this game really merits an introduction. The game which is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the 2D Fighter back into the mainstream has received an upgrade. Street Fighter 4 is now “Super”, baby. But, what does it mean to make a fighting game “Super” anyways? Is it improved? Are all the things we loved better? Are all the things we hated augmented? Is it merely different?

As someone who thoroughly despised the original SF4, Super Street Fighter 4 is definitely an upgrade in my eyes. Some of the good things are better, while some are the same. Some of the bad things have been improved upon, while others have been left alone. For better or worse, Super Street Fighter 4 is still the same game as before.

If you haven’t hopped on board yet, Super Street Fighter 4 is a “2D Fighter” presented in three-dimensions. There’s a huge cast of characters from various games in the series mixed in with a decent amount of newcomers. Each character has their own set of normal moves and special moves. Players get a “Super” meter, which allows characters to do an extra powerful Super move, or use 1/4th of the bar to do an “EX Special”, giving one of their special moves a boost in some way or another (it might come out faster, hit harder, be invincible on startup, etc.). Each character also has a “Revenge Gauge”, which builds up as they take damage, allowing them to release an “Ultra” attack which deals more damage based on how much the Revenge Gauge has been filled.

(S)SF4‘s other big innovation is Focus Attacks. Hold down two attack buttons (specifically, medium punch and medium kick) to begin charging the attack. If an opponent is hit with a Focus Attack, they will slowly fall to the floor while being vulnerable to a combo (called “crumple stun” in fancy shmancy fighter talk). Focus Attacks can be manually canceled by dashing forwards or backwards, and they can also absorb one hit of damage. This allows for neat little gimmicks like using a Focus Attack to take a fireball to the face then backdashing out of the Focus Attack, leaving us much safer than if we just jumped over it. Lastly, normal and special moves can be canceled into Focus Attacks for 1/4th of the Super bar (called “Focus Canceling), allowing for advanced combos.

In the grand scheme of things, Super Street Fighter 4 doesn’t shake up the core gameplay very much. Each character can now select from one of two different Ultra attacks at the beginning of a fight. All returning characters have had some subtle tweaks for balance, and damage across the board has been lowered, especially on Ultra attacks.

Ten new characters have been added, bringing the roster number up to a whopping thirty-five. And, thankfully, all characters are available right from beginning, with no need to unlock anyone (Dear Capcom, please do this all the time. I love you!). The only thing we unlock is the ability to play the Bonus stages at any time, turn bonus stages off for 1-player, and the option to change individual character voices between English and Japanese.

The majority of the old game modes still remain. We have the 1-player Arcade Mode (with new storylines, endings, and rival battles for every character…if that matters to you), the multiplayer mode with local and online options, Training Mode, and the Challenge Mode. Unfortunately, the Time Trials and Survival Modes have been removed from the Challenge Mode, but the Combo Trials are still around. These are fun, but just as before, combos that require specific spacing or setups can be difficult to do, as we’re given no indication whatsoever of this.

The main draw to any fighting game is the competition, and the online multiplayer is so greatly improved from its predecessor that it’s virtually a different experience. For one, we now have the option for to do lobbies with multiple players (called “Endless Battle”), and also a “Team Battle” mode where the players in the lobby are randomly divvied up into teams and duke it out.

Beyond just the options, the netcode is lightyears ahead of where the original SF4 was. It no longer takes over thirty seconds to generate a list of matches, and finding a match that’s virtually lag free is a surprisingly real possibility. Lag is still dealt with by input delay (bad news for fighting games), so the prospect of finding playable matches online is a huge deal.

Ultimately, there’s only one major gripe I have with (Super) Street Fighter 4, and that’s the issue of its alleged ‘beginner-friendly’ gameplay. To be blunt: it isn’t. It’s touted as being easy for beginners because special move inputs are ridiculously easy to do. However, this doesn’t do much to make the game easy to get into for a beginner.

SSF4, more than any other fighter, forces players to rely heavily on link combos. This means that two moves combo together, not by canceling the first move into the second, but rather because the move is just barely fast enough that you can peg them with a second move just before they can recover and block.

This is a pretty advanced strategy in most fighters, but it’s the crux of SF4′s gameplay along with using Focus Cancels. To give an example, one character’s bread and butter combo is: Medium Kick, cancel into a dash, Hard Punch (a link, so you have a 1/60th of a second window to press Hard Punch at the right time; too early and the move won’t come out, too late and your opponent can block it), cancel the Hard Punch into a special move, then use a Focus Cancel and immediately dash, linking the special move into a crouching Hard Punch before canceling it into yet another special move, followed by a third one which hits them one final time.

Keep in mind that this is not some wacky, exotic combo. This is a combo you will actually need to pull off with this character to play him effectively (see this video at 1:57, only this guy repeated the first half of the combo). It’s an extreme example, but every character uses these concepts in their routine gameplay. How, pray tell, is this beginner friendly?

What I think the ‘beginner-friendly’ term actually means is: ‘friendly for casual players who will never take SF4 seriously’. Don’t get me wrong – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, I believe the term beginner implies a willingness to improve their skills, rather than just brag to their friends that they can do a Hadouken with Ryu. If you are a beginner, don’t be fooled: Super Street Fighter 4 will feel easy to play, but the game is extremely complicated, and it’s something you should be aware of before you buy the game thinking you’re going to get back into Street Fighter, hop online, and school a bunch of cats on Xbox Live/Playstation Network.

That being said, if you are willing to make the commitment to improve, there’s never been a better time. Vanilla Street Fighter 4‘s egregious netplay made it very difficult to hone your skills unless you lived near an arcade with a SF4 cabinet, or a group of people who played it consistently. That time is now over, and Super Street Fighter 4 can now be enjoyed with competition, no matter where you live (don’t quote me on that).

If you’re not a huge fan of the competition and just want to chillax with your friends, you now have a huge addition to an already large roster, and some new ultras to play with. This game was enough for me – a player who seriously hated the original SF4 – to embrace the game. If you haven’t made a decision about (Super) Street Fighter 4 yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.

The Breath of Fire series is immensely popular among older gamers, for some reason. If you ask me, how anyone could enjoy these games is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. They are constantly marred by slow, droll combat, frequent random battles, and even more frequent fetch quests; the payoff being a set of predictable, mediocre storylines in pretty much every respect.

I think Makoto Ikehara, the mastermind behind the series, must have realized this. That’s the only explanation I can come up with as to why Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter turned out so much different from the rest of the series. Even though it may tragically go down in history as the game which ‘killed’ the Breath of Fire games, I believe that this game is perhaps the best thing that’s ever happened to the entire genre of RPGs.

Deep Earth is a series of subterranean caves and catacombs built by remaining survivors of a worldwide catastrophe. In this society, citizens are assigned D-Ratios, a label which determines one’s status. Players assume the role of Ryu 1/8192 an average Deep Earth soldier with about as low a D-Ratio as there could be. One day, Ryu, along with his friend and fellow soldier, Bosch 1/64, are assigned to guard cargo on a transport train. A terrorist group blows the train to smithereens… while they are on it. Ryu, having somehow survived, soon discovers a young girl names Nina being attacked by a monster. After saving her, Ryu attempts to make his way back to Ranger HQ while protecting her.

Nina is no ordinary girl. Her very existence points to a secret experiment that the Deep Earth government would rather not have the citizens know about. Thus, Ryu’s benevolence sets the army against him. Obviously, fighting an entire army off as just one man is suicide, and Ryu is almost killed for trying. However, at the last minute, the soul of a dragon makes a pact with Ryu, saving his life and giving him special powers. If Nina wants any chance to survive, she needs to get out of Deep Earth, so Ryu vows to take her to “the sky.”

This might not sound like anything special, but it’s not the originality of the plot that makes it interesting. What sets the storytelling above the rest is its superior use of camera direction to portray emotion. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter makes the absolute best use of non-verbal communication out of any RPG I’ve ever played in my life. The ‘less is more’ approach to dialogue allows the characters’ mannerisms and facial expressions to do the majority of the communication. Despite not having a single lengthy conversation, I always felt like I understood each characters’ feelings by just watching them. In particular, Nina has only one scene in the entire game where she speaks, and yet it’s still easy to understand what she is ‘saying’ and empathize with her.

And after all, isn’t this type of communication something that storytelling in video games should strive for? If all I ever wanted was to read a bunch of text, I could always pick up a book, for crying out loud. If more games followed this example, we’d see a lot less verbal diarrhea, which plagues the genre (and, incidentally, makes for ineffective storytelling).

Combat relies more on strategy than brute force. Battles are turn-based, and take place on the same map as the dungeons instead of using a separate screen, as seen in most JRPGs. Character position during battle is important, as they have limited movement and attack range. Players gain the first strike in battle by attacking them first, and vice versa. As such, when walking through the dark catacombs in this game, it can be easy for enemies to ambush you and wipe your party out unless you’re paying attention.

What gives Dragon Quarter its edge over 99% of JRPG genre is that combat strategy begins before the battle even starts. Enemies never respawn after dying (which prevents grinding, a plus in my book), so experience points are limited. Bonus experience is earned by getting the initiative and ending battles quickly, so lacking alertness while exploring will result in players losing out on experience.

Any enemy in proximity of the player will be in the battle when it starts. Even weaker enemies can be dangerous in large numbers if they gain the initiative, so players need to consider how to separate enemies from the pack and weaken them using trap and bait items, lest they want to fight several tough enemies simultaneously.

Thus, the player is always playing. This is different from the majority of the JRPG genre, where players can absent-mindedly drudge through dungeons like zombies until a battle calls for their attention. Now players need to be alert and use their finely-honed strategic skills all the time. As a result, it’s ultimately more rewarding to succeed in this game than it is in other JRPGs.

A key feature of this game is the Scenario Overlay system (SOL). Upon losing a battle, players can restart the game with all acquired abilities, equipment, and some of the party’s money and experience. Depending on how far one progresses through the game before restarting, they’ll also be able to view new story cutscenes that weren’t available before.

The SOL system was made with the idea in mind that players will have to start over again. Players can only make one hard save, which requires a consumable item to make. Temporary saves can be made; however, they delete themselves upon being loaded. This works wonderfully to create a feeling of tension when playing. Most games allow players to try again with no repercussions, but Dragon Quarter causes players to feel like something is at stake if they lose, adding a sense of urgency to the game.

However, this leads up to the one large complaint I have with the system: holding off key parts of the plot until players have started over several times causes problems. It can alienate some players from the get-go by showing no confidence in the their ability to succeed. It also punishes those who complete the game without having to restart by showing them a story which appears to be sloppily constructed.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter would be my pick for the best RPG ever made. It was created by someone who understood that JRPGs needed to undergo a drastic change to become relevant again. If JRPGs continue to be lambasted as severely as DQ was for trying to make radical changes to the genre, we’re probably going to see a bunch of uninspired anime JRPGs and Final Fantasy 7 wannabes until no one cares about them anymore. Think about that when the next ‘Dragon Quarter‘ of the genre gets released. Or, better yet, just play it and see for yourself what JRPGs are capable of when they try harder to break the mold.

There’s a strange lack of tension in Front Mission 4, considering that the Front Mission storyline is about nations perpetually warring with each other using bipedal tanks called Wanzers, and making battlefields out of inhabited cities. I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was until I was most of the way through the game.

One time while playing, my girlfriend watched for a few minutes, and I asked her if she felt tense watching a city being made into a war zone. She pointed out that there’s a distinct lack of human element in the game; there’s no people running for their lives, no civilians to protect, not even any repercussions for hitting buildings with missiles on accident. Hell, there’s not even any vehicles on the side of the road!

The epiphany hit me like a ton of bricks. The previous installment – Front Mission 3, of course – for all the bad things I have to say about it, successfully made me feel as if my life was constantly in danger. It also made me feel like, by grace of piloting a Wanzer, I was constantly endangering other people who could care less about the pointless conflicts which spark the fuels of war. FM3‘s protagonists would always talk to new people in new villages and hear how they were handling themselves. Many of the side characters were war orphans. Enemies sometimes fought out of Wanzers. Even the city environments used for battles felt more real; there were actual signs of the places being inhabited, and players were allowed to destroy parts of the environment by shooting at it. Front Mission 4‘s exposition suffers heavily from never having its player consider the perspective of non-combatants.

Front Mission 4 occurs chronologically in the series after the events of the original game. It puts the player in the midst of two ongoing stories. The first of the two being the story of the Durandal, a U.K-based European Wanzer research team dedicated to studying all aspects of Wanzer combat, from physical to psychological.

This story is told from the perspective of Elsa, a French military graduate and new member of the team. Shortly after the story begins, unidentified Wanzers attack several armed fortresses in Germany, leaving no evidence of their origin. The European Commonwealth – a Supranation consisting of the majority of Europe as we know it – sends the Durandal to help Germany investigate the attacks, despite the fact that they’re not actually a combat unit.

The second of the two stories is told from the perspective of Darril and his squadron in the army of the Unified Continental States (U.C.S), a Supranation that consists of the entirety of North and South America. They are stationed in Venezuela to try and force the nation into submission after attempting to secede.

One day, while on patrol, Darril and his squadmates, Renges and Chaeffer, observe a plane crash. When they inspect the crash site, they find millions of dollars in gold, and decide that the best course of action would be to desert the U.C.S army and try and make it out of the Venezuela with their newfound, unearned bounty.

It’s a bit difficult to talk about the two as a complete story, because their relation is marginal at best. The Durandal plot arc is the meat of the story, as the Durandal works to uncover a conspiracy to sabotage the E.C’s resources and blame the attacks on the U.C.S, prompting a war between the two. The plot follows a very predictable path: the Durandal goes to places to investigate, comes home empty-handed, looks bad, and gets severely remprimanded. But, they of course keep getting second chances because the British Prime Minister trusts them implicitly.

The only thing that really ties the Durandal’s story arc with the U.C.S arc is that Darril and Elsa finally get into contact by chance, and Darril’s random antics have caused him to stumble upon critical evidence that will turn the situation around for Elsa and co. Naturally, they indeed get things going their way, and save the day.

We can see the plot’s every move coming a mile away; we know who’s behind everything from the very beginning, and we know every time the Durandal is being led into a trap. One could set their watch to the time when the Durandal’s luck suddenly changes and everything starts going wonderfully for them, and then, that’s it! There’s no real atmosphere to take in, and the individual members of the Durandal exist solely for the player to have a squadron of six to send into battle, rather than being imperative to the narrative device.

Darril’s story is another matter entirely. It’s kind of original, but it’s also deplorable; while on the Durandal side of things, the characters are boring, static dialogue manufacturers, Darril’s company has some personality, but it’s hard to get behind their cause for many reasons. For one, their motivation is just morally bankrupt. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing to see in a story, but it’s weird when juxtaposed against the otherwise good-natured personalities of Darril and his friends.

More importantly, though, it’s just plain stupid: even if they were to escape Venezuela, I have a hard time believing that the U.C.S government and military couldn’t track down and court martial three deserters. I find it even harder to believe that three military men with good heads on their shoulders could manage to let such possibilities slip their mind entirely.

The main theme of Front Mission 4 seems to be “If you are going to fight, make sure you’re fighting for something.” But, is that really a theme worth exploring? It seems juvenile when examining the main antagonists, all of which are combat veterans. They take to fighting with unusual fervor, and don’t seem to care about much else. They’re easy to hate, because they appear to be causing a lot of trouble for no good reason. Naturally, no one is going to argue that such a self-destructive lifestyle is ultimately better for a human being, so what the hell are we even examining such a thing for?

The core foundation of FM4‘s gameplay is your typical turn-based Tactics RPG: characters move in square grids, and all allies take their turn, followed by all hostiles. Any attack is subject to immediate counter-attack as long as the character is in range to counter, with the exception of long range attacks. As is typical of the Front Mission series, combat is done in Wanzers, and instead of characters having a job class, players can buy parts to make a Wanzer which specializes in a certain type of offense.

All attacks inflict damage at random to one of four Wanzer parts, each with their own max HP. Losing all HP in the legs reduces movement range to one square; losing the arms disables a weapon equipped on the arm; and losing the body removes the Wanzer from combat entirely. All actions in a turn are dictated by a character’s Action Points (AP), which are used for both movement and attacking. As such, players need to carefully balance movement and attacking during their turn.

The new perks of Front Mission 4‘s combat lie mostly in significant improvements to FM3‘s skill system. Instead of learning skills based on equipped parts, Wanzers have built-in skill lists with abilities they can choose to learn by spending Enhancement Points (EP) gained after battles. Skills still activate at random, but FM4 has thankfully done away with all the skills that could randomly screw your pilot over by activating at the wrong time.

Backpacks – accessories that allowed Wanzers to use items in combat or equip heavier weapons – have now been modified to include Backpacks which can repair Wanzer parts and induce status effects, amongst other things. The last major innovation to the combat is the Link System – before battle, players can choose to ‘link’ a character to one or more other allies, allowing them to attack in tandem during battle if other linked allies are in range.

Unfortunately, Front Mission 4 still winds up being a rough game to play for a few reasons. For one, it’s still obnoxious to have no control over which part of the Wanzer a pilot shoots (allowing them to do so breaks the game – the original Front Mission proved that years ago). I wish I could think of a solution to that, but after three FM games, I still come up with nothing.

The Link system doesn’t give you any option to have someone not join in the attack. This might sound like a silly complaint at first, but sometimes linked Wanzers will chime in when they have a low chance to hit from their position, essentially wasting their AP.

Enemy Wanzers are also extremely passive; if they can’t reach you from the spot they’re stationed at, they’ll just sit there and watch you kill off their friends. This is extremely abusable up until the final few battles, because you can just kill any Wanzers that rush you at the start, slowly repair your Wanzers, and systematically pick off the enemies while ensuring your team is always at full health.

At thirty hours, it’s hard to really say if Front Mission 4 is worth anyone’s time except die-hard fans. The story is half predictable and half pointless. The combat has some nice ideas, but the AI is so braindead that any strategy requiring critical thinking is unnecessary. What exactly is the point of making a Tactics RPG with combat so mindless, anyways? Is that really any different from making an RPG with hour-long random battles?