PSP

Valhalla Knights 2

October 28, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Valhalla Knights 2 took the standard RPG checklist and made sure to check off absolutely none of the items listed under “requirements.” Combat is dull where is should be visceral. Dungeon design is bland where it should be interesting. It is easy to get lost because there isn’t a competent map system to aid the player. Lots of time is spent traipsing from town to dungeons because teleport spells only work one way and only one quest can be taken at a time. And the whole experience is dull because where there ought to be a gripping story there is a tacked-on excuse to go dungeon-crawling.

The story is light. Years ago two factions warred, and now you have taken up with one side. In order to win you’ll need to clean out dungeons. A tacked-on story is forgivable when combat mechanics are interesting and enemy design is high caliber like Monster Hunter 2 Freedom. Melee combat works well enough but boils down to “run up to enemy, mash attack button.” Playing a caster should be more interesting and strategic, but battles are so frantic and spells are buried under so many menus that you’ll spend more time dead than not. Thankfully, you’re not in this alone. You directly control one character (a warrior type if you want to live) and allow the AI to control up to five teammates. Your soldiers will follow orders and preset behaviors well so it’s in your best interest to set up a healer and an offensive caster for the AI to control since AI friendlies can bypass the menu system and fire off a heal spell much faster than you ever could. Since everything is so fast there is little time for strategy which just makes the entire affair seem generic and shallow. If combat were slowed down Valhalla Knights 2 could be a very strategic game, but as is there’s just not time to think about what you’re doing.

Valhalla Knights eschews fast travel to locations you’ve already visited for a more traditional “you’ll walk there and you’ll like it” system. The argument “it adds to realism” could be made, but I don’t play RPGs for realism. I play them for fun, and it’s just not fun to walk past the same location time and time again because your teleport spell only works one way. It shouldn’t be hard to keep a bi-directional portal open, even if it closes after the second use. You’ll also get lost a lot because the in-game map is very zoomed in, and you can’t pull it out enough to really get a good idea where you’re going. If you’re going to have to walk the very least Valhalla Knights 2 could do is supply you with a decent map. Sadly, all you’ve got is – maybe – a 20 foot radius around your current position.

Valhalla Knights 2 isn’t particularly pretty to look at either. This, again, could be overlooked if the combat were fun, but when added to shallow, uninteresting combat bland dungeons and low-res monsters are all the more noticeable. There’s really no reason to pick up Valhalla Knights 2. It will frustrate you because it’s maddening to see a game fail so spectacularly when with just a few tweaks it could be fun.

ESRB: E10+ for Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Mild Language, Violence – if Monster Hunter 2 and Final Fantasy are okay then Valhalla Knights is appropriate
Pros: AI teammates obey orders
Cons: Shallow combat, no fast travel, bad map, impossible to effectively play non-melee characters
Plays Like: any number of dungeon crawlers, but less fun

Wall-E

October 23, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by Michael Walbridge Make a comment! / Tweet it!

It isn’t every day that a portable version of a game manages to outshine its console-bound bigger brothers, but that is exactly what the PSP edition of Wall-E has managed to do. Wall-E, like many proud droids before him, exists solely to serve the humans that commissioned him. As the game opens he finds himself completely alone as the other robots set to clean up Earth have stopped functioning for one reason or another. After a few levels wandering around solo Wall-E runs into EVE, a reconnaissance robot from the Axiom. Eve teaches Wall-E that there is more to life than just picking up garbage and turning it into perfectly formed cubes.

Wall-E’s gameplay is fairly simplistic, which is to be expected for a handheld title. Wall-E spends the first few levels wandering through the myriad hazards of Earth looking for items that allow passage through the many locked doors. Like in the console versions, Wall-E is able to compact human’s litter into perfectly formed cubes. Basic cubes can be used as projectiles to attack enemies or open containers, magnetic cubes are good for attracting or repelling metallic objects, and explosive cubes are good for – well – exploding at things. Wall-E can also curl up into his hull like a turtle and use himself as a battering ram to smash through conveniently placed breakable walls.

After meeting EVE, Wall-E finds himself on board the space cruiser Axiom. The change in scenery brings about a change in gameplay elements as well. On the ship Wall-E is able to enlist the help of the Axiom’s android crew, and each crew member has access to a special ability that will help Wall-E through the whatever obstacle is blocking his progress. The whole concept feels a bit like Clank’s ability to control little robots in the Ratchet & Clank series. Wall-E also features a few minigames that serve to break up the levels. The assortment of minigames includes a rendition of Frogger, a race, and a space shooter where Wall-E takes control of the Axiom’s weapons systems.

Movie tie-in games are typically sub-par and aimed squarely at children who enjoyed the source material. Wall-E doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It’s still a movie game, and it’s still aimed right at the kids that enjoyed the movie, but it’s a good movie tie-in aimed at children. Wall-E offers only a little challenge, but the people interested in this title aren’t looking for difficulty on par with Metal Slug. Wall-E achieves what it sets out to do; it leads fans of the movie through the adventure again at home.

ESRB: E for Mild Cartoon Violence – Wall-E is appropriate for fans of the film
Pros: fun minigames, more Wall-E for fans of the movie
Cons: on the easy side
Plays like: the vast majority of movie tie-in platform games

Space Invaders Extreme

July 28, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by John Marques Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Most games that have “extreme” or such derivations in their titles are almost invariably not. This latest entry into classic territory actually is. Space Invaders Extreme starts off as the classic game does, with a space craft darting left to right. New alien types of different colors and sizes have been thrown into the mix to vary the gameplay a bit. Alien colors come in a variety of colors; defeating four of any color alien other than white nets a power up: red turns the player’s shots into bombs that hurt enemies in proximity to the blast, blue enables a devastating beam that tears through entire columns, green changes shots into a wide-area type that can hit multiple enemies at once, and black enables a shield to guard the player from damage.

This might all seem relatively basic, but defeating 4 aliens of one color followed by 4 aliens of another color, not including whites, makes a flashing saucer glide across the top of the screen. Shooting this saucer enables Round mode, a mini-game where the player is given an objective, i.e. shoot down 8 saucers, destroy 15 invaders, etc, in a certain time frame. If the player fails, the gameplay reverts to normal. If the player clears the Round, then game enters Fever mode. During Fever mode, the player is given temporary use of one of the three subweapons and is instructed to destroy as many aliens as possible. The more aliens shot down, the higher the Fever bonus.

The saucers mentioned earlier that enable Round mode also come in different colors: white which act as normal, blue which fire a laser beam, green which drop more aliens on the field, red which immediately begin Round mode much like flashing saucers, and yellow which start the roulette minigame. During the roulette, several color aliens spin around. Depending on which color is hit, the player gets different awards.

Each stage consists of a number of waves of aliens followed by an encounter with a boss. Bosses range from simply being larger versions of other aliens to multiple aliens that can combine together to make an STILL larger one with very specific weak points. It’s fair to say, for being a 30-year-old concept, the variety of enemy types is quite staggering in this game.

The multiplayer experience is unfortunately limited only to local wi-fi, unlike the game’s DS counterpart. Battles are fought by clearing as many waves of enemies as possible. The game ends when one player loses all their lives. Simple, yet very fun. The game experience itself cam be likened to being like the classic Space Invaders with more enemy types, and a dynamic that one might expect from a Lumines game insofar that the game action matches up with the rhythm of the music and makes it very trance-like. The game is fast, frantic, and certainly worth adding to your collection.

Wild Arms XF

May 28, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by Justin Last Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The PSP has become the de facto target platform for SRPGs, and as a fan of the genre I couldn’t be happier. The great screen and the familiar PlayStation button layout work exceedingly well for the genre, and being able to put the system to sleep ensure that even long drawn-out battle can be played in quick bursts.

Unfortunately, Wild ARMs XF (pronounced A

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

April 9, 2008

PSP / Reviews / by John Marques Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Final Fantasy VII has been overhyped and played-out. Included are Before Crisis, which never came to the Americas; Advent Children, which made little to no sense; Last Order, which told nothing anyone who had played the game didn’t already know; Dirge of Cerberus, which did little to contribute to the plot of the FFVII saga; and lastly, On the Way to a Smile and The Maiden Who Travels the Planet (Hoshi wo Meguru Otome). So why play Crisis Core? Because in a sea of re-hashed and uninteresting material, Crisis Core is a breath of fresh air, even if it’s a Final Fantasy VII story.

Crisis Core is one of the only games in the saga where the player takes on a different perspective that isn’t Cloud or Vincent. Granted, Before Crisis put the player in the shoes of the Turks, but most of the playable characters had little to no direct bearing on the plot. The character the player takes the role of in Crisis Core is none other than Zack Fair. While Zack played a very small role in the original game, it was integral to the plot.

Zack starts off as a SOLDIER 2nd class, and has high aspirations of making 1st class like his friend Angeal, as well as becoming a great hero like the famed Sephiroth. After quelling the uprising of the Wutai, all seems fine. However the meat of the story deals with a defected SOLDIER operative who is a friend of Angeal and Sephiroth named Genesis. When Genesis seemingly talks Angeal into joining his rebellion, it’s up to Zack and Sephiroth to stop their plans for rebellion against SOLDIER and Shinra. To be frank it’s a basic plot, but it helps establish the groundwork of the rest of the FFVII saga.

The gameplay flows quite cleanly. It usually begins with Zack strolling around the SOLDIER floor of the Shinra building or around Sector 8, gathering info about his next mission, buying items, and taking on side missions. From there, it’s out to the field and tackling the current assignment. This helps give the game a fast-paced feel and makes it fun to get into. The flow, as well as the gameplay mechanics, are simple and easy to get a grip on quite quickly.

One of the big things everyone was looking forward to is the game’s battle system. Battles are conducted in real time using a simple menu system that the player uses the L and R triggers to navigate and a simple push of the X button to attack, use spells/abilities, or items. A lot of what happens in battles is governed by the DMW, or Digital Mind Wave, system. It’s represented as a slot machine-like mechanism in the top left corner of the screen. It can change the parameters of battle, bestowing effects like invincibility, increased luck, or limit breaks on Zack. The game lays out in great detail how all the DMW effects work and after awhile, it becomes second nature.

There are only a handful of gripes about Crisis Core. The first is that the battle system might feel a little clunky at first but it’s nothing more than a modified Kingdom Hearts engine, complete with guarding and dodge-rolling. Another thing is the DMW. Level ups seem to occur on an extremely arbitrary basis; they come when the reels read 777 during a limit verge, and ONLY during a limit verge. Materia levels up in a similar fashion. When two of the reels read the same number during a limit verge, then the materia in that slot levels up. It can be frustrating for when that one extra level could really help out. Speaking of frustration, the game has several voiced system messages that play before, during, and after battles such as A

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