Soul Nomad and the World Eaters (PS2)

Yay Nippon Ichi and NIS team up to make a fun little tactical fantasy game filled with entertaining characters and fun gameplay. Here we go.

Gameplay: So the game will start you will choose a name and gender. From there you will go about creating and sending units into battle against hordes of enemies and a few giant monsters all of which have the capability of laying you out rather quickly if you are careful. Units are made up of 4 to 9 characters 1 of which is a leader. The units leader has advantages and disadvantages against other unit types. With all the different units it'll take time to figure out but it makes the game all the more fun. 5/5

Story: The story goes basically you get possessed by the hilariously entertaining death god Gig. From there as you go through defeating the world eaters which once served Gig. So many of the characters and interactions through the story are just so entertaining though the scenes can run a little long. The game also has a lot of subtle depth as you watch the characters and world slowly shift around you. 4/5

Audio: The music is okay nothing great, few battle themes are truly that inspiring. But the game is almost fully voiced and so many of the characters were voiced amazingly adding more to their individual depth and development. 4/5

Graphics: This game is another sparkly animey game like all its priors. The game relies more on being entertaining then pretty and thus it leads modest graphics. Scenes are told through still of the speaking character and animation in magic and special attacks is at its best as always. 4/5

Replay: The game is fun and well rounded between story and gameplay. It has a few ending and some bonus content but the novelty has worn off by the second play through and bonus content won't be enough to drive everyone to play a second or third time through. 3/5

Overall: In the end this is an awesome Tactical RPG with great characters a good story and plenty of entertaining dialog. The game plus stuff may not be the best it the world and isn't for everyone. This though is a truly entertaining game for those that like tactical RPGs. 4/5

Eternal Sonata (360)

Hello again. Now that we've gotten our vacation done, we're full of new games to review for your pleasure. Today I'm reviewing one of the handful of RPGs on the 360. Let's see what I think of it.

Story: While most people start with it being a dream of Chopin's before he dies, I don't think that is the best way to go. Mostly because that is not where the gaem starts. It starts you in this brightly colored world with a girl, Polka, coming home from market. Then it shows Chopin on his bed. Then it introduces Allegretto and his friend Beat as they steal bread for the poor. Then it goes back to Polka, then Retto (as he's known). Then Polka again, and finally Chopin is introduced into the world. Eventually you all meet and decide to go talk to the ruler of the land and discover why he's taxing everything so heavily, except for the cure-all known as mineral powder. They soon learn that mineral powder turns people insane and makes them mindless soldiers, which Waltz (the lord) wants so he can invade another country. Not only this, but Waltz is looking for ways to make the powder even more effective. The story has potential, but it is very very slow in execution. Also throughout the game you are given little tidbits about the life of Chopin. Most of what happens is going from point A to point B though. It is very linear. My biggest issue, and I think this is the best place to put it, is the cutscenes. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely. However, they are long, cannot be sped up, and happening too frequently. There was one time where there were about four cutscenes in a row that took so long my controller turned off. I like cutscenes, but I also like playing a game, and if I had to choose, the game would win. So, for too many drawn out dialogue moments, the story is losing points. It'sd a shame too, cause I really think the story had so much potential. 2/5

Audio: This is a game about a world in the mind of a composer. One would hope that the music would be amazing, and I think that it is. It's full of orchestral music that fits in with the game beautifully. Also during the parts about Chopin's life, they play music that he composed. The voice acting is pretty good, with some top name people involved. However, and maybe it's because of my new hatred of cutscenes, I could have really done with less of it. Still the audio shines. 4/5

Graphics: I love the graphcis with their cell shaded animated style. Somehow, though, the bright colors of the game make me feel like I've been eating tons of sugar. The game itself isn't all that light and fluffy, but the graphics seem to be. As beautiful as they are...they're almost too much. My other issue, the camera. It's fixed into place, which isn't horrible in dungeons, but it's annoying on the field. Especially since monsters appear on the field. I'm not sure what I want to give this. We don'd do halves; if we did, I'd write a 3.5. Since we're nice, we'll round up, but jsut keep in mind it was rounded. 4/5

Gameplay: The battle system is rather fun. It is a mixture of turn based and real time action. Each person has a turn and when it comes up they move as you direct and do what you say. They can attack, use a special, or use an item. As you progress through the game your party level will increase whick will shorten time you can use to plan your moves as well as add some more abilities. One such ability is the echo gauge, which increases with each successful attack your party does. It then boosts the power of whatever special ability you use next. Which special attacks will change depending if you're in the light or in the shadows, which adds a level of tactical thought. For example, Chopin has a healing spell when he's in the light, but when he steps into the shadow he has a powerful attack. As your characters level up you can learn more attacks, and you can set which ones you want to have in battle. Some monsters also change depending on if they are in light or dark. There's more, but that's all I can think of for now. As I said, monsters appear on the field so you can decide if you want to fight or not, and by approaching them from behind you can get a preemptive strike. I think that's about it. fairly easy gameplay with some good points. 4/5

Replay: Typical RPG, so no point in replaying unless you love it that much. 2/5

Overall: As muc has I loved the gameplay and the music and even the overall story, I can't give this game above a 3. The horrible cutscene length took away far too much of my pleasure to fully appreciate the game. I'd recommend renting it, to see what you think, but definitely don't buy it straight out. Not unless you prefer watching to playing. 3/5

Vacation

We're off to the beach for the weekend. No post this week.

Orochi Warriors (PS2/360)

All hail Koei owner of the Romance period of china and the warring states period of japan. Seriously they really do own it. So let's see how the newest installment did.

Game play: Like most of the warriors titles the main point of the game is to run around and maim everything. Occasionally you get specific missions to maim a certain person. Well in Orochi this hasn't changed much except for the fact that you don't play a single character you alternate through a team of 3 at will adding a bit more depth to the game. Characters also have some nice little specials tho these can either be useless or extremely over powered. 3/5

Story: The Story is that a crazy demon guy named Orochi yoinked up all the greatest warriors from the warring states and Romance periods of China and Japan respectively and then got them all to fight for his and your amusement. From there you follow one of the 4 stories through 15 stage 7 of which are side stages usually for unlocking characters. This is fine as koei never really cared about the story and its mostly about the violence. 3/5

Graphics: The game looks nice. Enemies don't randomly disappear because there's too much going on. The game doesn't freeze do to all the explosions and shiny special attacks. The only real flaw was that most of the cut scenes were just done in the plain normal game graphics. Unlike previous installments that seemed to be moving in a good direction with full CG movies.
3/5

Audio: Koei changes voice actors way to much and if you've played the other games it does take a bit away...that and some peoples voices are insanely annoying. The music is good though. Great battle themes and the return of the character specific themes makes them all the scarier. 5/5

Replay: There's a hand full of things to unlike more on the 360 but there's nothing there you can't find on the internet or another game. Once you beat a stories there's really nothing left but unlocking the few extras. 2/5

Overall: The game have a great concept but it wasn't taken to its fullest. Many characters suffered from a lack of balancing in the special abilities. The fact that if you played multiplayer you were forced to be the same team as the first player. The unlockables really weren't that interesting and getting the good ones usually happened in the course of playing anyway. All in all koei messed this up spending more time a on tuning up the specials and the multiplayer would have made this a much better game. Even though there are 4 60 stages none of them are very original most are overlapping in both plot and battle design. There really is alot more that could have been done here. 3/5

Growlanser: Heritage of War (PS2)

Growlanser games have been around for a few years now and have picked up a good amount of popularity. So will Heritage of War keep pace?

Gameplay: The game spends a lot of time making you go from point A to B and back to A again. The joy of this though is that battles are fun and with the addition of the knack system your team can be whatever you want them to be. The knacks system is a board of zigzaging skill plates that when set and leveled up will teach your characters attack skills magic and passives. Allowing a high level customization. 5/5

Story: At first you might think that story is a bit dry and predictable as you play through several prologue stories to get to the main one. Sadly you're more or less right and the main story seemed to have a bit of that too. Then out of now where it throws you a curve ball making all that predictable dryness a lot more interesting do to the little things that seemed unimportant before. This is how the story works with high low fluctuating keep you more entertained. The story could have had a solid high drama plot but too much is a bad thing. 4/5

Graphics: Even though most of your time with you characters was spend watching their polygon forms run around the map it wasn't really a big deal the designers did a good job at making sure they all kept their uniqueness. The game also boast a lot of animated cut scene that tho a bit short are really good and help remind you how awesome all the characters look. Towns and Areas are nothing spectacular but they aren't bad either they could have been better though. 4/5

Audio: The game had excellent voice acting as well a good fluid sound track. The characters where really brought to life by an excellent voice acting team something that seems rare these days. It's always refreshing to find a game that probably sacrificed a little on graphics to make voices and other audio worth it. 4/5

Replay: There is a game plus and a lot of fun side things that are easy to miss or forget. The game's story is just enough to make you play it the first time but maybe not a second. So if you feel as though you missed out by not doing some of the sidequest you probably did go back and do them. 3/5

Overall: Let's see the A.I. for you team is amazing. The cut scenes combined with the amazing voices and soundtrack make the story and characters feel more real. The knack system especially later in the game allows complete control over your characters if you want one to be a fighter, healer, and more there a lot of possibilities. So all in all its another great game in a great series. 4/5