Been playing lots of Sacred 2 during the past week/week and a half. My first impressions before playing was a bit iffy. I'll admit, I'm not a D&D, WoW, PC-style fantasy game fan. First thought was "seems like a college-level video game project that looks all too much like the Sims, mixed in with medieval themes." I was dead wrong though. Sacred 2 is more like a Grand Thief Auto set in a fantasy world with a Diablo 2 feel as well.
The game is very open-ended. From the start of which ever character or path you choose, the exploring and fighting starts and thrust me....there is a lot to explore. The world of Sacred 2 is very massive and loaded with side quests. The use of mounts (horses, and other mobile creatures you can buy), obelisks and warps can make your journey much less time consuming. I chose to be a High Elf in the light campaign and the instant I opened up the gates of the town I began in...I was ambushed by enemies...almost to the point of death right there. The controls might take a bit to get used to but the action scheme is very customizable and with a decent amount of empty slots to add either magic, weapons and shields collected in the game.
Speaking of the game's items, it doesn't take too long to completely fill up all your inventory from the loot dropped by the vast array of enemies that litter the landscape or the random barrels and chests in caves and in random households (ah the old, break in to a random villager's house and steal their loot deal that you find in say..Legend of Zelda and others). Thankfully you can rid yourself of the extra inventory by saving it in a Hero's Chest for later use, selling it, or , of you are stuck in the wilderness, simply scrapping old, worthless items for stronger loot you find.
As you battle your magic/skills and you level up. The quickest way to level up though is to complete a large amount of side missions. Actually much of your time in the game will be completing side missions as there are over 600 of them! You can of course skip them and go to the story's main tasks, marked on the map in a gold circle..but expect enemies to be much more fierce. Some side quests are a bit dull, I'll admit but some are pretty fun with awesome boss battles at the end of them, so they are worth it. Having people play with you online in this is a great bonus and like MMORPGs, can lead to quicker execution of tasks.
There are some quirks about Sacred 2 though. The inventory system can get rather cumbersome and its rather tough to see which weapons are the best to use. Also, the game's frame rate will slow when thee is lots of enemies and magic being throw around. I have the Xbox 360 version but I hear the same happens on the PS3. Similarly, the game will have odd loading slowdowns in the towns...something I'll admit I'm shocked to see on an Xbox 360.
Despite some flaws, I still give the game a 8 out of 10. It has the pick up and play feel of older games, the open ended play like GTA and makes me now think about picking up similar games that I've for so long avoided like WoW, Diablo, and Everquest.
Check me out on Xbox Live to see my progress in this game and others.
My gamer tag is chuckgaff415.
I'm still playing through the game (its very long, another benifit) so any new tidbits I can add to the review, I'll let you all know ;-)
Just recently I finished the Nintendo DS game, Lux Pain. The game was definitely something different. Depending on what type of gamer you are will determine a much different take on the game. Myself along with most of the readers of this blog will find this game more appealing than say a gamer who has no intention of getting into anime or manga.
Lux Pain in short is more of an interactive manga than say a true hands-on video game. It's akin to say a dating sim without much dating. There are moments, mainly in the bonus clips that you can unlock that almost are dates with any of the male and female characters...so almost a dating sim. Lux Pain acts more like a "mystery sim". The purpose of the game is to unlock hidden Shinen (or remnant feelings) in both the area you go to or the characters you meet to unlock the mystery behind cases of these creatures called Silent. Silent, in shor t, are like parasitic worms that feed off of bad feelings (Shinen). It sort of creates a physical reason to why people kill or commit suicide.
Finding the Shinen is not too hard at all even with a timer that appears in most searches. First time playing, you might miss one or two but a basic cycling of the stylus will let you find the Shinen withou t the need for the "Search Mode" that's available.
Eventually you will run into Silents. This is where the bulk of the actual gaming comes into play and there are three types of ways you'll have to defeat them. The latter two ways; breaking a glass shield then scratching the white orb on the screen or the "stringing corners" one, make decent use of the stylus.
Like dating sims, be prepared for ALOT of text reading. Again, this goes to my point about the game being more of an interactive manga...which is not bad since its still rare to see such games make it here from Japan; something we have been asking for.
The story is a bit confusing at first but like in any anime or manga, you will get to like many of the characters. I particularly li ked Rui and aimed much of my encounters with her first if possible ^^;; The voice acting of the characters is very good and for good reason I'll get in a second. The one issue though that you'll notice off the bat is tha t the text will not match what the voice actors are saying...it more paraphrases their statements. There are some typos and misspellings as well, but as a game developer and with loads of errors I usually catch in my own blogs, I can't bash that too much ^^; The voice acting was good and was because a bunch of popular US voice actors did take role in the game. Actors like Chris Sabat (Vegeta, Piccolo, Louis Armstrong, Kuwabara...etc), Monica Rial (Steel Angel Kurumi's Saki...and many others), and Eric Vale (the voice of my favorite male anime character, DBZ's Future Trunks)
Rui was my favorite by far.
Kudos to Ignition for getting the good dubbers but the issues in the localization can sadly be seen.
Overall, as an anime fan, I give the game a 7/10. Gamers looking for a quick and fun video game that are not anime fans might give this game a 3/10 though. My blog is for anime fans so the higher number is what you'd expect. Rent it first if you can but I didn't mind adding this game to my collection and I give it more credit than IGN or others would give it.
Here's the trailer for those who didn't see it yet:
Hey everyone! Got a chance to sit down and get some hands on experience with the Xbox 360 version of Soul Calibur 4. My current Xbox 360 is suffering from the one ring of death so its going to be sent to Microsoft for repairs. Due to this, my review won't be as in depth as for other games but I got a good day of playing thanks to a good friend of mine who might down the road be my brother-in-law. Anyways, on to the game.
Graphics:
Nothing short of spectacular. Like the previous Soul Calibur games, SC4 manages to utilize the graphic engine very well to bring not only nice looking characters but amazing flow to their movement and fighting that makes it seem like real people (or creatures) are involved and not lifeless dolls. Backgrounds are just as fluid and as graphical as the characters in the arena so there is a great sense of depth to the stages. Wasn't able to unlock all the levels in my allotted time but that's a good thing, since that means there are some to chose from. Most of which have the common closed environment or the familiar open area with the loved or hated ring-out possibility. One stage I noticed does have a row of soldiers that slowly move in and shorten the playing field. Chances are there are more things like that in the stages I didn't play. Speaking of armor and clothing for that matter, great detail was put into the look of them. One quick look and you can see that the Xbox 360's textures were used very elegantly to give the correct texture of even the most detailed clothing. Granted I didn't play the Playstation 3 version of the game but graphically both Xbox 360 and PS3 are about the same with PS3 being the one slightly better but chances are playing both versions of this game, as I'm told seem almost identical graphically. In other words, the characters, the background and also the special effects looks amazing and not plastered in.
Story:
Some people complained that they can't see how Yoda, Vader and the whole Star Wars Universe could be added to the whole Soul Calibur storyline but with my first story-mode win being that of Yoda, it seems fine to me. Other than the main story being that of Sigfried's fight against the Soul Blade, most of the characters are mainly on the outside of this anyways, so no complaints on my end. each character does have an in depth role that connects to the two blades and with each other in some way. If you get confused, the more you play, the more a character-relation-graph gets filled so that should fill in the gaps anyone would have. Its a fighting game, so storyline should not be a big issue for any player but there is one there for the reading if you so wish.
Music:
Anyone who's play a Soul Calibur game will be familiar to the type of music played in SC4, the chimes of knightly valor and honor like a modern medieval brawl is the same here. For those who are wondering about any Star Wars tracks, you'll be happy to know that the theme from the recent movies is there and with matching stages, too. Not sure if there are any more SW tracks but everything sounds good and if I had some surround sound in my place, I would like it even more.
Game Play: Now for the most important aspect of any game, especially for a fighting game. Fans of Soul Calibur will be pleased to know that the fast fighting action from previous versions is alive and well on the current systems. The fast old-school-like fighting is there and yes, so is the old-school dieing many times in the harder challenges. Yet, whether you are a veteran fighter or a button-masher, SC4 continues what the SC series does for both types of fighters and make both feel at home with a few new additions. These few additions include a first player mode that works like Dark Stalker's Tower Mode where you fight your way up a tower and if you lose, you descend. Also added (at least I don't remember it being in SC3) is the ability to increase the skill level of your character. This gives an almost RPG feel to it and unfortunately in my shortened time I wasn't able to see what difference the increased levels bring.
The Story Mode plays a bit differently too compared to other titles. In the stages you face per character, you will fight more than one enemy per stage. They are divided by the main characters and some randomly created ones (you can also chose random characters for yourself as well). Sometimes they join you and you can have a backup for when the later levels hand you on a plate. Speaking or random characters, the Character Creation Mode is there and this time you can customize the main characters as well and add that customization to their clothing list before battles. Didn't play long enough to see if you can create other characters from scratch like in SC3 but with all the unlocking you can do, it'll of course be a nice long play through to get everything. Being that Soul Calibur is the Gran Turismo of fighting games, this doesn't come as a surprise.
One last addition to the gameplay I must take note and its a big one, is the new Soul Crush ability and armor/clothing slashing effects. Some of the characters have extra armor and clothing (except for Ivy of course ^^;;) and that's because in the course of your fighting clothing and armor gets hacked away. It adds great realism to the fighting and though you won't see any IkkiTousen-style clothing mishaps, its pretty cool all-in-all. The hacking of clothing is also part of what I feel is the best thing to add in the fighting game and that's the ability to do the one hit kills (that look amazing by the ways) if a character defends too much. It doesn't happen very quickly so don't worry if you need to defend but if you are cheap with your defence (or the CPU is), payback can hurt very badly here. This adds the perfect balance to what I feel is the perfect fighting game. I give this game a 10 out of 10 with the only issue being that the loading times in the character select might be sluggish, and the Xbox Live aspect of it lags a bit too, but that's not much of SC4's fault as it is my network's (and the company running my home internet's fault). Enjoy this game and once my Xbox 360 comes back, you can fight user Chuck Gaffney (me, yeah I used my name ^^;;) as my look-a-like, Kilik.
As a long time DBZ fan, this game was right up my ally. I was very excited to play a Dragon Ball Z game for the current generation systems and with all good reasons. This game has to be by far the best looking Dragon Ball Z game to date. The visuals have to be the most astonishing aspects of the game. I will go as far as to state that this game has the best cell-shading graphics of ANY game to date, even better than the current Naruto games which also boast great cell-shading visuals.I must also note that I played through the Xbox 360 version which as many gamers know is slightly less graphical in power to that of the PS3... of course only by a slight bit. So, in other words, Atari did a bang-up job on the graphic. The backgrounds also blend in perfectly with the character graphics. They have a very real and in-depth feel that you would never think would mix with the cell-shaded DBZ characters, but the background just couldn't be better not just in looks but in dynamics. When you fight back and forth with your opponent, the blur effects are done the way you would think the super sonic would feel in real life and the ability to fight all the way into space is a nice touch. The only thing lacking with the stages is that there are only 5 stages in total and the only real damage done to the environment is when you contact well with an Ultimate Attack causing a short cut scene. Other DBZ titles like Tenkaichi for example did have more in ways of destroyable buildings, cliffs and the like. That you will not see here but as a game programmer myself, this was most likely done to keep the backgrounds maintaining their real look and to not slow the in-game play. Definitely a tough trade-off that hopefully can be improved in future titles.
Now, onto the gameplay. As stated before, the dynamics are fast and furious. I enjoyed the fact the game was balanced into being able to preform major attacks in a quicker amount of time. Yes, this can allow a player to be a bit cheesy but a quick reaction to a big attack with get you right behind your opponent and cancel their attempt to blast you. The controls are easier than previous titles and if you go through the Tutorial mode, you'll see that it does have a great load of depth. Tenkaichi fans might be disappointed though since the overall feel is very much like the older Budokai scheme but with wonderful energy struggles and dodging abilities. Personally I love being able to hit the dodge button and watch my character sit there and quickly dodge every fast punch very much like you see in the anime. Fans of the series might be surprised though that there is no manual Ki charging...sorry, no sitting in the corner of a stage and charging up. Your Ki is charged automatically and charges fast, but this allows you to activate the cool Aura Burst feature more often and fighter gamers will enjoy one less thing to worry about. Your Ki grows even faster if you get attacked to the point of activating a Drama Piece with that effect. Drama Pieces are little cut scenes that happen when you attack or get attacked a certain way, opening deferent effects like a dodged attack or regenerated health. DBZ fans will enjoy this bit but some gamers might find them a bit irritating. Either way, Drama Pieces add a nice customizable and unlockable slew of features to your fighter. You also have the ability to unlock a bunch of transformations and different final attacks for each player using the main story mode. Before I get into the story mode, known as the Z Chronicals, I must also state to other features that game has. First is the online play. This is always a welcomed addition and as with any game that could go online... make sure you play through the main story a bit to unlock more characters and features that will allow you to be at par with other gamers. The second feature to mention is the Survival Mode which would be better if it wasn't for the game's one major flaw that I'll go into in a bit.
Now onto the Z Chronicals, or the main story mode of the game. Fans of DBZ like me will love it; non-DBZ fans will probably be ok with it. There are six different difficulty levels: very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, and Z ; so there's alot to do if you are to get all the achievements. Only the first three are available on your first time through which unfortunately is rather short. There is only the Saiyan Saga, Frieza Saga and the Cell Saga. No sign of Majin Boo or any characters from there either. The one major flaw of the game is that the roster is at about 30 characters which is mainly the different variations of the main characters and of course the shortened story line. One might feel that the game is incomplete if you are used to the other DBZ games that had a much larger roster and all the sagas included. For a regular fighter, this would deem pretty good since the causal fighting gamer won't look for anymore but as both a hardcore fighter and gamer, its a a bit lacking in that aspect.
Overall though I still give this game a 7 out of 10 because the visuals and the fighting will make any DBZ fan and fighting fan happy. The engine is pure but would be perfect if it had more characters, more levels, more destructible items, and the entire DBZ story. I would recommend renting first if you are unsure but I am glad I have it and that I can face all of you online. If you got an xbox 360, look for user: Chuck Gaffney, that's me (yes I know I used my whole name ^^;;). As long as its not my brothers (or me) playing Halo 3 or Gears of War I will face you as the character I resemble the most...Future Trunks.
As promised I created a full review of Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. To prevent this blog entry from being to large I placed it here and also on my forum for further discussion. You can also rate it here on helium.com. Enjoy this game for it's an experience all right.
