The Last Story has been hyped for years, started to surface back in 2009 as a collaborative work between Mistwalker and AQ Interactive,  sponsored by Nintendo as a collaboration. It released to Japan and Europe with positive acclaim however, Nintendo apparently did not think it was profitable enough to offset the localization cost to bring to North America. Why would it be a great idea to localize a game made by the creator of the Final Fantasy series Hironobu Sakaguchi with a score done by Nobou Uematsu, especially when a huge fanbase known as Operation Rainfall boldly tells you straight up in massive amounts of mail-in and call-in campaigns? There’s just absolutely no sense in supplying a game to North America with such a legendary background of developers and a powerfully vocal fanbase behind it, smart move Nintendo! XSeed believes the opposite and decided to publish Nintendo’s newest RPG IP. This is the Wii’s last bit of hype and lives up being the swan song for the Wii in North America as a story well told on top of a great design of a Role-Playing Game.

The player controlling a group of mercenaries that have come to an island seeking employment with the dream of coming knights, what is an interesting discovery at first, you do not control the leader of the group, but you control someone the leader has taken under his wing at a younger age being blessed with the Power of the Outsider that becomes a partial focus as a plot device as the story progresses. The Last Story tells a rich tale which involves the main character (who comes off as a street rat) choosing between loyalty to his friends and ideals or abandoning them to live in nobility as a knight, his childhood dream. What hurts even more with the latter, the main character finds an early chemistry with a love interest only to find out that she is a Princess being forced to marry someone she does not love, you will get the opportunity to make a good name with the Count and wed the Princess instead, however the choice not to sell yourself to the restriction of knighthood leads to the princess being forced to marry someone she doesn’t love. The theme presents a lot of interesting conversations and lots of relatable issues that will get you pulled into things, think the combing story tropes of Aladdin and Final Fantasy.

A story about a street rat who falls in love with a princess who is being forced to marry someone she doesn’t love? And look the Princess even has a tiger friend! Umm, haven’t I seen this somewhere before? I know Sakaguchi has worked on Kingdom Hearts which has Disney characters in it, but this is ridiculous!

Of course with the above picture being a harmless jest, returning to a more serious tone in the review, if the above exposition feels like a lot to swallow, you’ll have to brace yourself because a war breaks out where you are caught in the middle of it, dealing with tropes of prejudice, forgiveness and the practice of standing for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone. The story feels like a priority even in places where it feels like it should be a backdrop as no matter what you are doing, you will be showered with exposition where you go, you won’t even realize half the time you were on a sidequest because you are being given so much rich detail of backstories. Even NPC’s you talk to can give you quite interesting conversation. It feels like an overall well-written script with well-paced exposition, you never feel like the story is taking a break from telling itself and it will make you feel all kinds of emotions of sincerity, charm and even laughter.

We can’t forget though that a lot of tropes like these have been seen in other console RPGs, the story may not always break new grounds, while providing a bunch of acceptable twists in the story, it can feel like a tried and true nature, but the difference here that can make the story stand out from others of the genre, is that the way it’s told feels refreshing, fluid and immersive. You can basically describe the way Mistwalker writes stories the same way Nintendo designs platforming, it may be of a tried and true nature but when they try their hardest, it’s refreshing while being tight in grasp, fluid in motion and immersive by nature. (Of course when they don’t try to be refreshing you end up with still well-designed but stale things like Blue Dragon and New Super Mario Bros. 2 from each respective developer) While The Last Story has a fair share of well-executed twists, it must be addressed as a warning that there is a certain twist throughout the game that is so extremely obvious and so painfully and we mean painfully cliche in execution that it hurts. We won’t give it away but you’ll know it when you see it and as it becomes obvious, it will hurt to think about and then when it finally does happen it may even cause a migraine worse than you could ever get from any part of even Blue Dragon (even Blue Dragon’s boss music) and one of the most awful executions in video game storytelling to date. Aside from the one gaping hinderance, while not as deep thought provoking as Lost Odyssey, while not nearly as interestingly convoluted as Final Fantasy XIII  the story is easily one of Sakaguchi’s best works of writing complimented by a stellar cast themes and it’s a blast and will end up making you keep your Wii on for hours at a time just to get to the satisfactory conclusion, proving that familiar themes can still come off fresh.

The Last Story is fairly plot driven and this is proved by the streamlined overworld in the game. This is for a good cause as while the game feels fairly linear, you will be motivated to explore as much as you want. You may not even realize you are on a sidequest with all of the things jumping at you. There is a main HUB world that you will reside in for majority of the game, residing of the tavern you and your friends live at for the time being, shops to go to and outlying dungeons. For a game that takes place in mostly just the capital city, there sure is an abundance to do and it certainly isn’t boring (unlike Dragon Age II’s mono-town setup.)  Formula of progression in The Last Story works in a fashion of simply triggering the next cut scene,  often cleverly lead by linguistic bread crums left in the dialog of NPC’s to find out where you need to go, whether it’s someone at the tavern telling you your friends are getting ready for a mission or a guard who is informing you that you are being summoned to the Castle (which tells you thats where you need to go), and it comes off realistic in the life of a mercenary. The main places you go to will consist of corridor-type dungeons, each dungeon being designed in a refreshing way that separates it from the previous.  Anything on the side will be things that give more exposition into the plot and it feels rewarding. You can always return to any area in the game to pick up rarer treasures or get around faster by using the quick travel system.

The Last Story clocks in at about 30 hours of gameplay, including an epilogue that does something RPGs tend to need more of, giving an expansive look at the aftermath lives of our heroes. While it’s a bit on the short side for the genre, it gets it’s message across to make up for the shortage of the singleplayer campaign. If you’re still hungry, there is a multiplayer mechanic although can be viewed to be half-baked, this will have mixed results, as the multiplayer mechanic consists of online battles, and co-op boss battles (with up to eight players against one boss). Unfortunately you can’t play any parts of the story with more than one person, which is a shame. The multiplayer love it or hated will feel limited after a while in what you can do and eventually your interest will fade. Even though that’s true, it’d be awfully cliche in the industry to deduct points because of an aspect of a genre that doesn’t really ever appear in the genre (such as multiplayer in an RPG), if anything multiplayer can only add on another layer and at the worst it can just be worthless and you always have the main meat of the singleplayer game this was meant for. The Last Story will get the dust off your Wii alone with it’s rich singleplayer campaign alone.

The Last Story will provide you with a unique experience as an RPG, it certainly has a battle system that drifts away from the typical RPG combat. One thing that needs to be mentioned earlier as an aspect of the gameplay, you only control the main character the entire time. Many other Action RPGs have taken approaches like this before and the game doesn’t make you miss for the ability to play as more than the main character, it is his story anyways. Besides, you will be able to give quick commands to other party members by other means later in the game. The combat of The Last Story is very intuitive and feels heavily involved, with battles playing out in real time in a hack-slash fashion, giving you the common tropes of attacking, magic attacking, blocking and dodging. The core sword on sword combat works very well and for those of you who didn’t favor the type of Action RPG combat in Xenoblade Chronicles, you will be blessed, as unlike Xenoblade Chronicles, the battles are more so about reflexes and tactical placement of the attacks you execute, rather than pre-planning the best equipment. You will need to learn to block and dodge the attacks as they come to survive like a decent hack-slasher. It’s a blessing to have real-time combat in an RPG that feels as decently involved as would a pure action hack-slasher while still retaining tactical elements of that a chess match.

Stealth can net you bonuses to give you advantages!

With solid hack-slash combat, factoring the environments make things even more complex. Almost everything on the battlefield will eventually have a way to interact with it and because there are numerous ways you can approach (and will need to approach) enemies in battle, especially boss battles, the game will make you think about all possibilities. Can’t harm the enemy? You’ll have to find a way to flip the enemy over to get damage under it’s shell. Fans of Tactical RPGs, mostly the sense of Valkyria Chronicles, will like the idea of ducking for cover and switching cover to get better positioning, which can also sometimes be used to get instant-kills for stealth (there are a quite a few stealth sections that can be rewarding for killing enemies without getting into a fight). Very rarely, the cover system will get some miscalculated executions like when trying to dodge but accidentally hugging against a wall, but the games credit, you will not hug the wall if you were moving the joystick or facing away from the wall, so that makes a complaint like that a moot point. Not to mention a vast amount of other environmental moves will be put to good use like running up walls and flipping off of them to get an aerial attack in place. Tired of your mages getting attacked while they need to cast powerful spells?

The Gathering system The Last Story puts into place works with the protagonists power of the outsider’s ability to cast a benevolent blue light from the hand, while this is activated, every blow you hit will restore a little bit of health at the cost of every enemy only attacking you. Keeping this on is likely what noobs will end up doing and dying. The gathering system will be used to let other party members cast powerful spells while all enemies attack you, or better yet, lead a hefty boss to destructable material for them to perish. If that’s not enough, the addition of the seek system lets you look for things to advance cut scenes or possibly shoot arrows at. You may need to shoot certain environmental hazards down onto enemies to get advantages or cue someone else to shoot magic at it. For shooting arrows at enemies, headshots are going to be a must for extra damage, while also equipping special enhanced arrows to do more impact. (i.e. to cause fire, explosions or poison etc. on impact).

Adding even more tension to the required high-maintenance of the environment, when mages cast spells, they will appear as circles on the ground, when enemies are in circles from damage related spells, they will take damage as long as they are in it and when allies are in circles from healing related spells, they will recieve health, but both instances will do gradual damage. In order to do large instant damage (or healing), using the Gale ability that is presented to you early in the game, will have the main character charge to where you have the cursor pointed at on the map (as far as the game allows) and deliver a blow that has wind surrounding him as he lands that does damage of it’s own, diffusing all magic circles he is standing in (while making them disappear) to deliver large amounts of additional damage (or healing once again) based on the conditions of the magic circles.  You will also need to diffuse enemy magic circles this way to stop the circles from buffing up, healing enemies, or dealing damage to you, being negligent to enemy magic circles will make battles much more frustrating, so you will need to be on your toes at all times.

Speaking of magic, there are two bars that you will need to be aware of throughout the game, a bar that dictates magic and a bar that dictates a powerful maneuver known as a Spirit Attack. The bar that dictates your magic will be cut in four sections, each section being a use it will be refilled over time gradually throughout battle. If the bar is full you can use the entire bar to initiate Command Mode, where gameplay pauses, while you select an action per each individual party member (you can opt for a character not to do anything) and all commands you give once you set everyone’s action will be executed all at the same time.  The Spirit attack bars are powerful manuvers, when full, you will need to execute Command Mode to be able to activiate these manuvers. Activating everyone’s Spirit Attack all at once can cause deadly results in your favor.

All in all, these variables will test your maintenance skills to the fullest, however if all that was explained earlier feels overwhelming, fear not, as you play through the game these features are progressively introduced so you can take your time and learn each new feature as it comes. The Last Story is also a fairly easy game, so if you die, you are doing something wrong. You’re not exploiting enough weaknesses or you have not equipped properly (you can change your equipment any time even in battles). Each character has five lives throughout the battle and if the leader loses all five of those lives, the game is over and you will have to go back to the latest checkpoint or savepoint. The checkpoints are fairly generous as to never lose enough progress to cause you stress and too much wasted time. What’s also great about The Last Story is that after each battle your health regenerates, meaning there is no need to keep stopping at inns or continuously stocking up on items just to stay alive. The only thing you need to worry about is progressing through the game and using your reflexes to survive, which is a godsend to the tedious tasks RPG’s would usually force you to do. With a complex battle system and yet simplified mechanics like the omission of the need to buy healing items and inns, this makes for an RPG that’s convenient and challenging in all of the right respective places.

A few issues that are worth mentioning is that when there’s a lot going on screens, it can cause a bit of slowdown. Something control related that won’t be missed for Wii come the Wii U, while we highly recommend that you play with the Classic Controller Pro, the fact that developers are compensating for the fact that there is less buttons on the Wii Remote, means that block is mapped to the R and ZR buttons. That’s an extra command lost due to that accomodation. We also recommend that you use a Pro controller since the ZL and ZR buttons on the original Classic Controller are a complete joke.

The Wii’s outdated hardware is really put to the test with The Last Story. Visually this is one of the best looking games on the system, with so much detail paid attention to the character models. The cut scenes that take place are mostly in game and will remember what the characters are wearing even if everyone is in their underwear. There’s sprinkles of Full Motion Video cut scenes thrown in occasionally to amplify already epic imagery, taking advantage of the dual-layered disc this game runs on, which otherwise would have looked muddy and awfully compressed. (you can still see it but it’s not nearly as badly compressed as a Wii RPG on a single-layer disc like Arc Rise Fantasia which has some of the muddiest looking FMV eyes have ever laid on.) Each town is beautifully crafted in different ways, as you’ll go to places like the town, a garden, a ship and even a haunted house (which is so cliche it’s kind of cute. charming and hilarious in delivery that it really works in it’s favor during the Haunted House scenes! Why not play this during October for Halloween!?). Within the town, it’s largely populated and it’s very interactive. You can run into people if you’re not careful  and almost everyone can be tampered with. Though there is a bit of hilarity in the animations, such as people bumping their heads on signs, it’s quite laughable how every person will walk into the sign. You can also knock fruit baskets down and watch everyone slip, or use the vintage Prank Banana to cause mayhem.

You’ll notice things look better up close but not as good far away.

As for the sound, when it comes to voicework, the voicework is pretty stellar, the voice cast residing in Europe are a much needed breath of fresh air from hearing Johnny Young Bosch or Wendee Lee voice yet another character. Everyone in town has voice acting and you’ll be quite surprised if there is a line read with no voice acting. Unfortunately every now on then (but rarely) you’ll hear a horribly read line that sounds like the cornball factor of Tales of Symphonia or Baten Kaitos for the Nintendo GameCube, but with 95% of the read lines being well executed to compliment the well-written script, you can’t really complain. It’s a shame that the lip syncing is not up to the same standards in the FMV because it’s as accurate as a Donnie Yen or Bruce Lee martial arts movie.  As for the music, it’s one of Nobou Uematsu’s best works and definitely will take you back to that Final Fantasy place at times, though the variety is a little scarce and you might hear the same tune a bit too often, thankfully majority of the tunes are of great orchestral standard. Don’t be surprised if you catch yourself humming these tunes or just stopping to listen to the music, which is  matching up with the already epic action.

Conclusion

The Last Story story tells a very interesting message: You don’t need the strongest hardware to create an immersive experience, while The Last Story is ironically named as the last great Wii game, it’s definitely not the best Wii game nor the best RPG but it certainly puts the close to a consoles existing legacy in North America in a respectful way. The game itself tells a story that while it is cliche, it tells the story in a way that feels fresh with a lovable cast. The battle system is one of the most involved Action RPG battle systems in a while that will put your mind to the test. A well told (but familiar) story together with an intuitive battle system and plenty of sidequests to fufill that can total you up to 30 hours of gameplay, which you can even extend with the endless (but still more to be desired, but hey, Mistwalker is still promoting the purpose of the Wii! Playing together!) multiplayer and with only a few minor drawbacks, you need to dust off that Wii and buy this under appreciated gem! If this is the Wii’s swan song well then I sure want more swan songs to be performed by Nobou Uematsu and if this is Wii’s Last Story well then I sure want more last stories to be written by Hironobu Sakaguchi.

8.8

Buy It Now!

(Personal Memoir: The Last Story feels like dejavu in terms of it’s release date. I remember back in the year 2006, Baten Kaitos Origins for the GameCube came out a few months before the Wii launched. Of course I was one of the only people who really knew about it, while being really excited for the Wii,  I enjoyed one last classic RPG for the GameCube in Baten Kaitos Origins. It depresses me the same way with The Last Story as I am heavily anticipating the Wii U, I enjoy The Last Story, but the depressing part is that both of the games came out at a time where the next Nintendo console was what Nintendo gamers were worried about so while I am playing, I know these games are getting heavily overlooked. The experiences still feel special to me as I awaited the next Nintendo console.)

Straight off, it is not a recommended purchase presently, as it is priced too high, unless someone is starved for a decent, but sometimes semi-frustrating and challenging puzzler or loves offshoots of games like Bejeweled.

The game is not as appetizing as other choices like: Tetris for the Game Boy, Toki Tori for Game Boy Color, PiCTOBiTS for DSi, or Pushmo and Bomb Money for 3DS eShop. That is not to say that 7 Wonders II is a bad game; it just does not compare to the higher-tier puzzle games on the DSi or 3DS or many other systems, and, as stated, it is priced higher than many other puzzlers, which are better, due to their simpler and less frustrating premises. If the game was cheaper, say $3.99, it may be a bargain, but as it is, it’s a tough sell. Nonetheless, it may interest some gamers despite its high price and average to good nature, because of its unique take on the games it heavily borrows on, as there is usually a place in the heart of gamers for a somewhat traditional puzzler such as this.

The objective of 7 Wonders II is to build seven historical, iconic wonders or buildings of ancient times, such as Stonehenge. Players match identical blocks as previously described, and the entire board, which changes shape and dimension as players progress, is jam-packed with building parts that players must collect within a specific time-span, matching pieces and cashing them in on the parts they sat, through normal play. It’s a huge collectathon, which is intriguing in and of itself for a puzzle game, but as the game becomes increasingly difficult, it can be quite frustrating, as all of the pieces must be collected to progress. There is even a piece that must be dropped off the board by matching pieces under it enough times. So, the focus is not on getting the best possible score, ridding the board of blocks or surviving, but collecting everything on the board. Due to this type of mechanic, it can be frustrating to collect every piece on each respective board, because what players need may not be available and when it is available, it is too late because of the time limit.

Time limits are not new to puzzle games, but here it is more nerve racking than not. It could be assumed that it’s more of a thinking-man’s game because of the time limit and some of the mechanics explained above and below, but because of the reasons provided, it really is not, partially because of the large amount of luck and patience needed.

Powers will appear on the board that can wipe out everything horizontal of it (if you match four blocks), everything directly vertical and horizontal of a power (if the player matches five blocks), the ability to eliminate a multitude of a specific type of blocks on the board, and so forth, if activated by being directly moved. Intentionally matching like so will help players reach their goal. Matching only three blocks will sport the player no reward. As the game progresses, through game boards being beaten, the player is rewarded with a collection of powers, and before play, the player has the choice to pick one unique power to use each time a game is played. Powers can range from eliminating everything within an “X” region to slowing down the countdown timer to score multiplier, as the first three power-ups the game gives the player. The power-ups have cool-down or to say can only be used every once in a great while. A standard shuffle of the board pieces is also available, when it is not on cool-down. Overall, with the element of powers, the game sort of gives the gameplay an RPG element to play around with, which can be rewarding and interesting to see in a puzzler. The game as far as RPG elements even goes as far to state how many in-game years players have supposedly been playing, what age they’re in and so forth, and has a bit of background of the wonders, but other then that, it shies away from anything else RPG-like.

Graphically it passes for a puzzler and nothing more, and the sound and music is acceptable. The graphics and sound are not memorable though.

The game’s controls are executed via the touch pad only.

7 Wonders II is a fun and ambitious game, but it can be irritating due to the objective of the game: getting all the pieces before time runs out on every board. Simply put, when everything is put together and thought about, the game can certainly be perceived as ambitious, as stated, but honestly this game is not quite the ambitious players likely want. It’s not the genius of Tetris, Bomb Monkey or Pushmo, but not every game needs to be genius like-so. The asking price on the game sort of dictates that it is though. And although the price is expensive, if everything as described sounds fun, feel free to purchase the game. Just be warned that the game will likely be forgotten in gaming history soon, if it has not already been forgotten, and it may be forgotten by this reviewer within a week or so…

6.0

Upon starting up the game for the first time and creating your character, you can notice the graphical theme that the game was going for – funny, hilarious and lively. I found this, along with the game’s soundtrack to contribute to making the objects in-game to be lively personality. However at the same time, I couldn’t but help but find most of the hero’s available looks to choose from to be contradictory to the image painted by the story: “one of the youngest and brightest cadets to graduate from the esteemed Planet Crashers Academy” assigned to save the galaxy. While character customization optimizations available are some what detailed (hair, eyes, mouth, gender, skin color and clothing), many of them made the character look more of a mischievous prankster than a hero.

As soon as you begin your single-player adventure, you are briefed with the issue at hand, the story. An unknown evil from a dark corner of the galaxy wishes to put out the sun. As one of the most of brilliant and youngest graduates of the academy, you’ve been tasked with the mission of saving the galaxy. As soon as you step out of your house and begin exploring your home planet, “Lushy Greeny”, the way the game presents itself can be seen clearly. Characters look similarly to yours, funny and lively and the world is filled with various objects. The enemies you’ll find in dungeons look the same way, and the simple soundtrack maintains a cheery simple feel at all times. To top it off, the 3D graphics feature of the console compliments the rotating globe view of the game. One some issue I found with the interface was when buying items at shops. The game doesn’t allow you to purchase multiple items at once, nor does it show how many items you currently have onscreen.

The game relies heavily on a quest system to push you through the adventure. Quests are mainly assigned through the billboard in front of your house or by accepting one from a quest giver on the planet. Quests from quest givers will typically require you to be at a certain level or above. Generally, quests involve finding a lost item or person from a dungeon or defeating an enemy in the dungeon. The problem here is that those quests began to feel repetitive after a while. While it sounds like a good way to push people along the game and carry on the adventure, there are two huge flaws in this system. Firstly, you can basically only carry out on quest at a time. Upon completing a specific quest in a dungeon, you are not only teleported out of the dungeon but all the way back home. Next, the game does not automatically accept quests that you did not bother to. I’m talking about going into a dungeon looking for a person or item, and realizing its not there because you did not manually accept it outside of the dungeon. This again feels like a bother, typically in other quest-driven RPGs, quest items are there, regardless if you accepted the quest or not. These two flaws prevented the question system from being a smooth and enjoyable journey in my opinion.

The leveling up system is pretty normal from what we’ve seen from RPGs in the past. Players level up using the usual RPG experience point system. Experience can go be gained by defeating enemies in dungeons or by completing quests. Upon leveling up, there are four statistics to choose from to increase; HP, Attack, Defense and Speed. HP will always increase automatically on leveling up while the other three are left to the player to decide which one to increase when you level up. You can equip weapons to increase your attack and use certain items to temporarily increase some of stats in a battle.

Next, the combat system. The game seems to borrow elements from both Pokemon and the Paper Mario series. The combat system is a turn-based system which both and the enemy take turns to select an action. Just like the previously mentioned series, the player selects an action on the menu. On your turn, you can choose to attack, use an item, swap skills or run away from battle. When selecting attack, just like Pokemon, the player can choose from four attacks to perform. You start off with a single move called “Strike” but as you continue through the game, you gain more powerful moves. Just like Paper Mario, on performing the attack, if you press ‘A’ at the correct time, your attack is more powerful. Sadly, the same was not done on the defending side of fights. When you’re being attacked, you don’t have the option to press a button to avoid or weaken the enemy’s attack. Instead, you’ve got to watch your character get pummeled. A minor flaw in the system. I just figured if Paper Mario’s system of timed actions was borrowed, why not use it on both sides?

Next, there’s two things I have to criticize here. The game falls into RPG-related pitfalls. Firstly, while we’re on the topic of the combat system, there’s a flaw in engaging the enemy. All enemies in dungeons move just as fast as you, if not slower than you. This makes too easy to avoid all the enemies chasing after you and just finish all your object finding questions, making combat feel more of a bother than something fun to do. Secondly, the traditional “home base saving” style for saving the game. The game only saves upon completing a quest or when going back home for a nap. This means, you can not manually save and your game will go back to the last save if you were to turn it off before finishing an entire quest to teleport you back home. There’s no save option in the menu or any save points within the dungeon, that’s it. Finally, the multiplayer comes off as a disappointment when you think of what it could have been. The game’s multiplayer feature only allows you to have 1-on-1 battles with other players. There’s no co-operative mode (like there is with the iPhone where players can team up and gain special bonuses using the GPS feature) or any form of other connectivity.

Conclusion

To close off, Planet Crashers presents it self as a humorous and light RPG title. The game does well in presenting itself as a funny and cute-style game, with simple and cheerful music, funny graphics and bursting with life personalities. The game makes good use of the 3DS’ 3D graphics, which really plays well with the rotating globe style planets in the game. However, will it does well in the presentation department, the core mechanics is what wreck the game. The battle system lacks some much-welcomed mechanics, the quest system, while fun, is flawed and so is the dungeon. It is these flaws which will drive away many intermediate and adept RPG players. On the other hand, casual players may consider this as a cheaper, pick up and play RPG if they’re don’t feel like investing in better options such as Tales of the Abyss and very soon, Kingdom Hearts 3D. Although, at the current price, you may be getting a better value with one of those.

5.5

Thanks goes to UTV Ignition Entertainment for providing me with a copy of the game for this review!

The story of Sonic The Hed—hahahaha! Story? Story!? My stomach hurts so much, I can’t even say this with a straight face. Okay let me try again: The story of Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episo-bwahahaha. Ha ha ha..ha…HA! I can’t say it. Okay let me try again, I swear I’ll get it this time. Sonic The Hedgehog 4, Episode II’s story—-PFFT (biting on my tongue right now) sigh, I got this! The story is a lot more simple take at the continuation of the first Episode’s retroactive continuity, adding onto what first Episode’s events that take place directly after Sonic The Hedgehog 3 + Sonic & Knuckles, but also further ties events of Sonic CD bringing back Metal Sonic into the fray. You join Sonic The Hedgehog with the returning sidekick Miles “Tails” Prower, a Fox with two tails—Wait, I just got it! Miles! Prower! Miles Per Hour! Oh my goodness after all of these years of being a Sonic fanatic I’ve finally gotten it! You join the anthropomorphic duo to stop Dr. Eggman (oh he got a court order on his name in such a short time too?) from taking over the world!

Provided you have Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 downloaded on your system of choice as well, the technology used in the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge will link up and show you the revival of Metal Sonic right after the end of Episode 1. Speaking of continuity if you don’t want to believe that Sonic just suddenly had liposuction to get skinny (it seems that Tails the Fox has done so too) or became anorexic to expunge all of the chili dogs he consumed in his body so he isn’t fat anymore and ate a lot of vegetables to get taller after Sonic 3, it’s not worth it to overanalyze like I’m doing right now because more than ever Sonic games are not played for the story. As much as I just explained a what may seem moderately depth plot, it’s actually pretty simply presented, there is no dialogue, everything I explained earlier is taken out of interpretation of mimed skits, with gestures from the Sonic cast as well as what you see. It’s cute, it’s not groundbreaking, but the plot is really non-existant beyond the instruction manual and muted presentation events in the story.

Episode II of Sonic The Hedgehog 4 features 12 levels and 4 bosses at the end of each set of 3 acts, like it’s predecessor and at a price of $15 like the first episode, that’s a lot to be asking for, even with a special red ring to collect in every level. Not effecting the final score of this review, is the lock system between Episode I and Episode II, where you are introduced to episode metal, introducing you further into the retcon of  Metal Sonic’s revival where you play a simplified 4-level (1 level from each area of Episode I) pack through each area in the opposite order that Sonic traveled in Episode I. Of course you’d have to have already spent another $15 on an even more disappointing predecessor. Each level consists of enemies to kill and obstacles to jump over and loops to run with. All classic Sonic Fanfare. Speaking of classic sonic fanfare if you beat a level with 50 rings, this time you will be presented with a trip down memory lane with bonus stage borrowing an extreme sense of nostalgia from Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Running down a linear corridor on rails, collecting as many rings as possible to meet the pre-requisite amount by the time the upcoming checkpoint comes, you have to get past 3 checkpoints with a certain amount of rings, if you don’t have enough rings to meet the said checkpoint’s requirement, you fail and you do not get the chaos emerald at the end of the special stage and you will have to replay that level and get 50 rings all over again to even get a another chance at the special stage (which is pretty stressful and repetative now adays).

There’s 7 chaos emeralds in this game, so if you’re able to complete 7 special stages, you will become the legendary golden-furry wonder of Super Sonic, being permanently invincible to anything in your path provided you have the rings for it, being that you need 50 rings to turn super sonic and every ring is one second of Super Sonic. An easter egg that truely tests will of even the biggest Sonic fanatics. Sonic fans will be proud that co-op is back in Sonic The Hedgehog, so you can have another friend play as the two-tailed wonder, Tails. Even better, you can do this online! It’s a shame that online co-op had to pick a criminally uninspired game in the first place but, we digress, it only helps the dull package here. To critique the actual levels in this blue blur nostalgia trip, they fare much better than the previous game, the design seem a lot more crisp and there’s a little bit of cleverness to the design, but still fare to be irritatingly playing it safe in a similar fashion to the New Super Mario Bros. games – Only here you are given a much more shallower game.

Such breathtaking nostalgia!

Playing it safe describes the gameplay of the Sonic The Hedgehog 4 series oh so well. The difficulty, nowhere near matches up to the Genesis classics and the gameplay, feels totally watered down especially if you have played Sonic Generations, in which the classic Sonic sections of that game could have been a better game by itself over this streamlined cash-in. All you have to look at is the side of a stage, no camera twirls or anything, the impact is definetly hurt when you compare to the 2D gameplay in Sonic Generations. Now as a stand alone game even then, it even feels like the most generic meaning of a Sonic the hedgehog game. Keep moving forward…press the jump button once in a while…yep..you’re playing a Sonic game. At least for the beginning where it seems like you are the fastest thing in the world and comes to a bit of a halt in later stages where you are forced to partake in slower paced platforming. Kinda how the original Sonic The Hedgehog fooled many consumers with it’s speed in advertising but really just being like any other platformer in the later stages, only a lot worse, as the original Sonic The Hedgehog is a classic masterpiece in platforming. This is not.

Sega still hasn’t listen and still provides the infamous gripe many people hated in the first episode of Sonic 4: Being able to stand on a slope as if it were level ground. It hurts the suspension of disbelief and gives the gameplay tactics a dent in the quality. A controversial issue would be the inclusion of the homing attack. This is Sonic The Hedgehog 4, not the first 3, it’s not a justified reason to have a gripe and any complaints about how it controls, it’s simple, if you see a target lock-on, you press the jump button in mid-air and you will homing attack the target! If it’s not there, you won’t hit the target. The homing attack in the Sonic series is an overrated complaint and we’ll let it be known that the homing attack is not a problem in Sonic The Hedgehog 4, it is the pure lack of a players skill and timing if it doesn’t work the way you wanted to and lock-ons will only happen if you are within a certain range, so the complaint that you press a button under false pretenses that you were close enough because you saw the homing attack cursor for a split second doesn’t fly and the fault still remains with the player for not perfecting that jump towards the enemy.

That’s pretty bad if you can make playing in the snow not fun.

There is some creativity in having Tails around though, he gets new power ups along the way, he can carry you to heights you cannot reach provided he doesn’t get too tired of carrying you, which you’ll mostly often use to break the game and play the level like Kirby (except not as cheap of a mechanic as his float),  you can  have both lock arms and legs and roll into a giant invicible ball (hold your ambiguously gay duo jokes please) and plow through enemies and blocks you can’t normally break, you can aid Sonic in swimming since he doesn’t know how to swim, have Tails pull him through the water and lastly of course, you can have Tails and Sonic form the ball and drill through the ground. It gives an illusion of depth but really it only feels like it’s only sprinkling glitter on a paper-thin throwback, as these abilities only seem to slow down what is supposed to be a speedy game.

Sega has put lots of these moments where you are forced to use these powers that really hurt the pace. There’s a lot more pace-breakers with terribly drawn out boss battles between either Dr. Eggman (or Robotnik for you old school purists) or Metal Sonic. Slow is a theme here, when the theme should be fast. Speaking of the abilities of Tails, sheesh! Tails is like a pocket utility knife; except in the shape of a two-tailed fox! In the special stages one common complaint has finally been fixed from Sonic The Hedgehog 2: Remember how Tails used to cost you many rings with his delayed jump running into bombs you distinctly ran over and losing rings that you have no control over? Tails now jumps at the exact same time you do in special stages and while still giving the benefit of grabbing rings that you just barely miss, a welcomed godsend to the on rails special stages.

Sega, you’re making Tails literally have to pick up the slack for your poor choice in level design.

Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode II looks more crisp in art design than it’s previous episode. The graphics are a bit more glossy, but once again it plays it too safe in it’s presentation. The feeling of lackluster presentation even creeps more into your mind from playing Sonic Generations, even only judging by the 2D levels of Sonic Generations. In all reality the Genesis graphics of the original Sonic The Hedgehog trilogy, actually fare much better than generic mish-mash of 3D. Or even the Sonic Advanced or Sonic Rush series for handheld Sonic gamers. Though this isn’t disgusting to look at, the presentation is just ho-hum and as is. We know Sega is a lot more capable of pushing hardware to it’s limits and it’s not even an excuse that this is just a downloadable title. There’s no voice acting (that may be a blessing to some of you Sonic purists out there), all “cut scenes” are done in mute mimimg and the music is really hit or miss. Some of the midi Sonic tunes will have you searching for the songs on YouTube and constantly replaying them because you can’t just get them out of your head and others will sound like squeaky gear-grinding garbage. This is coming from Sega who have composed some of the most memorable soundtracks in the gaming industry even for wretched games like Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic 2006.

Conclusion

Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode II is yet another ho-hum installment in the episodic Sonic The Hedgehog 4 games, that just prove this saga is throwaway and even Sega knows it after finding out what they could do with Sonic Generations. They practically had this game already finished and just put it out only because it was in already in the pipeline, so they needed to make-up the cash already spent by releasing it to the public.  Don’t be surprised if you never see another episode in the Sonic 4 sub-series. We know Sega is capable of better than a generic streamlined definition of a Sonic game that will only cater to the purist of Sonic fanatics. It’s best to wait for Sega’s next outing with the blue hedgehog, because the Sonic Team knows how to get a handle on Sega’s mascot way better than this. On the other side, if you’re a hardcore Sonic collector, this at the level of the painful Sonic Cycle level you can give it a purchase: Everyone else, it’s not worth $15 for a game at the base completion time of 1 hour when it’s this underwhelming. Go download Sonic CD from PSN or XBLA pronto for the better part of Metal Sonic’s arc. If Sega was trying to relive Sonic’s glory days, they already accomplished that in last Holiday’s Sonic game. It was not accomplished here.

6.2

Now I’m going to skip right to the design and gameplay, since the plot of this game is well how do I put it: pretty non-existent. Red and Blue have to work together to escape from a high-security prison! Boom there’s the official plot. The genre of this game is hard to identify but I’ll give it a try: This game is a tactical puzzle game for iOS devices by the up and coming Malaysian developers at Touchy Interactive. Funny because there’s a lot of “touching” involved in this game. In an overhead view you start with two player icons which you can pretty much call Red and Blue. You control them individually and can move them at any time by putting your finger on one of the icons and then dragging a line up to the destination you want them to go, by then taking your finger off the screen where you want them to go. If you are in a viewable distance from the enemy, with no orange blocks (that represent walls) blocking the vision of either player, both of the icons will start shooting, first person to get hit dies instantly from just one bullet. If either of your player icons die, the game is over and you will have to retry the same level again.

Take a look at the tactics being used, Red distracts the enemies, Blue is going to take them all out!

Now from that standpoint, it comes down to whoever sees who first will get the better end of the outcome. There is however more depth than just that, as there’s a green blocks on the screen will represent cover, if you are near cover and the player icon sees an enemy or vice versa they will duck behind the cover automatically, same goes for the enemy. If both a player and an enemy are near cover and see each other,  will take place between the two icons, but nobody will perish. This is where you can discontinue the crossfire by moving your player icon out of the enemy icons visibility range or you can take your other player icon, while that one enemy icon is distracted in the crossfire, your other player icon will shoot him on sight. That is what it will really come down to, how well can you utilize teamwork between the two player icons with baiting the enemy icon with a distraction from one player icon and ambushing the enemy icon with another player icon.

The great part about this games design is that there is no wrong answer as long as all enemy icons are abolished, which gives the non-linear and non-limiting feel to how you can get through a level. Each time you complete a level something new will be thrown in, such as switches that will let you teleport, change walls around, etc all adding in a new challenge not to mention getting the best scores and ratings on each level, think you can 100% this beast? You’re up for a challenge! It starts to become comparable to the longevity of what you would see in games like Angry Birds, the only small flaw is that it may seem to get repetitive and it’s not recommendable to play this game for many hours like you would for something like Elder Scrolls which is a lot less simpler of a concept anyways. For the best experience we also recommend that you play this on an iPad (4th gen) to have the biggest screen as it was obviously meant for that.

Check Out The Official Trailer From Touchy Interactive!

For 99 cents, what more could you really ask for than the graphics of the game? They’re pretty simple but stockish. Obviously majority of the enemies all look stock and the same as well as the levels which..well look all blocky and you’ll see the same kind of floors, walls and cover. The music however, while also can get repetitive, the music is wubtastic, full of dubstep/techno beats that will make you want to put your iOS device on speakers and dub up your room! One thing I must admit, reviewing a 99 cent game, there’s not much to expect as my current mindset is still put on these $60 home console titles, so as a journalist I’m used to judging how much the game is worth your money. I feel bad that this game is only worth 99 cents actually. I feel it should be at least worth $5! I honestly feel like handing 5 people with an iOS device a dollar telling them to pick up this game because it’s so worth the $$ that I want to practically give money away for people to play this game! (Um, they can do whatever they want with the extra penny, penny jar, homeless person on the street, charity, etc.)

Conclusion

This game is a remarkable first outing from Touchy Interactive and it looks like a great future for them. This game has a great foundation, addictive gameplay and for only 99 cents this game feels so good I feel like I’m stealing it for that price. While not playable for extremely long periods of time you’ll have simple yet complex experience with the tactics the game forces you to use and will make you amaze yourself in figuring out solutions to puzzles that require such tactics for 30 levels with more levels coming soon! You’re still here? If you’re tired of Angry Birds, What are you waiting for? Split! and go buy this game!

8.5

Buy It Now!

Watch our E3 2012 Video Reviews Here!

Hey, so I (IceTheRetroKid) have given reviews of all of the conferences at E3 2012.  You can access all of them on this page, which will be updated as I periodically post the reviews with links below or the E3 2012 Conference Waypoint video posted below.

Update 6/24/12: Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft Conference reviews are watchable
Update 6/26/12: Sony and Konami Conference Reviews are watchable
Update 6/29/12: Nintendo Conference Review is now watchable!

The story of Kid Icarus: Uprising takes place 25 years after the original Kid Icarus on the Nintendo Entertainment System (intentionally representing how long it’s been since the release of the original Kid Icarus) in the world of Palutena above Earth. Starring an Angel who can’t fly, Captain Pit of the Palutena Army and Queen Palutena herself as Pit’s guide. The second you boot up the story mode it will open you up to a story that has dialog at a machine-gun of a pace.  The story itself is also delivered in probably the most fast-pace ever seen in a game. There isn’t a dull  moment at all, every bit of dialog contains some sort of exposition, comedy, self-aware fourth wall jokes or even some actual in-depth morality debates. A lot of old school fans will be thrilled to see references to older NES titles. On top of this, there’s a lot of heavy spoiler-content that you’ll have to see for yourself, the shock value is very high. This is one of the greatest storytelling you will ever see particularly in a rail shooter game. The story would have to be the best part of the experience of it all, because it’s all so refreshing. You can always turn the dialog off if you hate too much chatter and are more of a shoot ‘em up or rail shooter purist, but for those who love a good story, for a rail shooter this is the upper realm of storytelling for the genre. (I may even do some of my own jests and fourth wall breaking in this review!)

After 25 years, Medusa is back again and Pit must save the word from her rath. An NES tale given a shot of modern epic depth.

Kid Icarus: Uprising’s design of levels, has a formula (with rare exceptional breaks due to certain plot points) that is common for majority of levels. In the beginning of every level, you get to choose anywhere between 100 difficulty levels ranged from 0.0 to 9.0, which not only ends up giving broadened opportunities for players of any skill level to enjoy the game in their own way, it provides tons of replay value for all stages. The default difficulty is 2.0, but anything lower will give  up hearts as a fee to pay for making the game easier, anything higher is considered betting hearts that you will win if you can complete the level without dying, you die and an uncomfortable percentage of your hearts you will win go down the drain. Depending on the level of difficulty you select, more enemies will swarm around the screen, take more hits to kill, do more damage, prevent you to doing obvious patterns to fool the AI. For the first 5 minutes of every stage (at least in terms of the game’s perception of time), Pit will be given the power of flight from his obvious friend with benefits (;D), the green-haired wonder herself, Palutena the Goddess of Light. In those 5 minutes you will go through on-rails shooting segments, aiming your cursor at the enemies and firing your choice of weapon before each level at them to defeat them. Then due to Pit’s inability to fly on his own, his power of flight runs out and he will be brought to the ground will he will have to combat enemies with hack-slash combat, walking through some corridors with the occasional fork in the road leading you to hidden secrets and on more special occasions, you will find difficulty gates that only let you explore that side path if you visit the stage on a certain difficulty level or higher, adding even more replay value, on top of all of previously described giving a hybrid of rail shooting and hack-slash action. At the end of each stage will be a boss battle, once you beat the boss battle, all of the hearts you’ve earned defeating enemies will accumulate, any new weapons you get, if you feel you have too many of them, you can convert them to hearts, or you can keep the weapon in your inventory. After each level, it will bring you to the achievements chamber in a very similar fashion to Super Smash Bros. Brawl – and there are a lot of them. For the completionist gamers, you have a ton of work cut out for you.

Speaking of weapons, the stats of weaponry have a lot of depth, you may even spend hours just trying to find the perfect setup for you. You will buy weapons, sell weapons, forge weapons to make stronger ones, and you may even need to read up a FAQ just to get an idea of what to use if you want to figure out what the best weapon is to burn through that level 9.0 difficulty setting or the online versus gameplay which we’ll get to in a moment. As the game progresses, be wary that levels do get lengthy, the very first level can be beaten in a matter of five minutes or less. For the later levels, they can last 30, 40 and even 50 minutes at a time. Prepare to often put your 3DS on sleep mode if you happen to have the need to put down your 3DS. Some of you may like this, at least you are getting your moneys worth. What gives you even more your moneys worth, after an average 15 hours long campaign of Kid Icarus: Uprising, you have the multiplayer options to deal with: There are a lot of them. That weapon system will have you trying every single weapon to see if you can come out victorious, the most experienced players will definitely win here, especially if they know the ins and outs of the weaponry. The weaponry is a pretty huge learning curve with the multiplayer, so if you want to master this game, it will take a while. The online is flooded and it’s a great community that even Nintendo still likes promote it on their media outlets to have days specified to get online. This community will be one of the long-lasting communities of 3DS online games, right next to Mario Kart 7.

Real Life - Send Me An Angel.mp3 (Only a nerd like me would remember this song)

Analyzing the gameplay of Kid Icarus: Uprising takes a bit of isolation skill if you are entertained by the stellar storytelling as a Kid Icarus fan might be. In the air sections, you control Pit with the slide pad but you control the cursor with the stylus and to shoot you use the L-button (previously explained is assumed for right-handed setup). What immediately comes to mind is that: This game would have controlled much better on the Nintendo Wii or even the upcoming abysmally named Wii U, with the nunchuck to control Pit and the Wii Remote to aim the cursor, like in Sin and Punishment: Star successor. Having to control the camera of Kid Icarus: Uprising with the stylus as Pit says “like spinning a globe”, can feel a bit unnecessary and it’s a shame that the most uptight players will pass on this game because of the controls. In order to use left-handed controls you’re going to need a circle pad pro, in which, you might think, why couldn’t it have just controlled like a third-person shooter such as Gears of War? Well you’re absolutely right. From here on out, we’re going to consider a classic controller pro a necessity so unlike some other review policies, we’re going to assume the best that the player will get one, otherwise some of the best 3DS games might be unfairly reviewed, like what happened with Guilty Gear on the Wii assuming that the player didn’t have a classic controller pro. Point blank: If there is a better official control method to play the game, we’re going to look at the game at it’s best even if it’s not the base controller. Also what comes packed in with Kid Icarus: Uprising, is a stand. Without this stand you will get cramps, sure you might say not to take that into account with the review and assume it has no stand, but honestly, you’re going to need this as well for other 3DS games, because I for one now find it more comfortable to play even DS games like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime Hunters.

You know angels are very deadly with swords.

That being said, Kid Icarus: Uprising feels like the difficulty setting may only be just how much the player will have to compensate for some slippery controls. Though on the upside, Kid Icarus: Uprising is just a total case of: “This is a great game despite “insert gaping flaw of game here” type deals because the overall packages feels amazing. Sure the controls might feel a bit slippery and loose and may cause some occasional plummeting to your doom, but it’s still a thrilling experience, because the good outweighs the bad, hit detection is fairly decent. It may feel like you could just run up and slash anything wildly at will mashing on buttons, but that won’t always work on higher difficulties. Really the best part about Kid Icarus: Uprising is that it’s as difficult as you want it to be. You wanna just burn through everything and just hear the story? You can do that. You want a challenge and to think about every single move you do to progress through the story and dare I say it, want it as hard as the original Kid Icarus? You can do that too. Any gripes you have with controls can be negated with difficulty settings and believe it when we say so: The hardest difficulty isn’t a pushover and you will die many times, as it will kick you down by 1.0 difficulty or if you’re close to 2.0, .5 or .3, and the difficulty and your hearts earned at the end of the stage will trickle down with each death you take.  Even the bosses will seem streamlined to the difficulty you have chosen.

Play Dead and be a Good Dog! A Good Nintendog! Roll Over! Sit! Beg (For Your Life)

We can’t give a clear synopsis on the difficulty being that it’s up to the player, but we don’t suggest you stick to 2.0 if you’re an average gamer unless of course you have no hearts to spare. Online multiplayer may feel like slash until the other person dies, but 75% of the strategy of online multiplayer seems to feel like before the battle even starts, picking your weaponry and your perks. The online multiplayer of Kid Icarus: Uprising is only rivaled by Mario Kart 7 in its community and fun addicting gameplay, as there’s many options such as team battle, free for all and even games like “Kill The Pit” where you kill your teams Pit (captain). Kid Icarus: Uprising’s gameplay overall delivers and if not for the story, then the fast-paced action and the multiplayer after the campaign will drive you to come back for more.

Uprising has come a long way from its 8-bit predecessor, its graphics look pretty astounding for the Nintendo 3DS, the 3D aspects are a must (unless your eyes might be too sensitive) to get the best of its look, but you don’t need them, without the 3D it still looks just as astounding, the environments and sparkly images are good for the hardware. Character models are still frame images during just random conversations but, there are a share of scenes where characters are on-screen with full 3D models and they’re done very well, reprising models even used from Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Pit and his fanfiction-proclaimed romance partner Palutena. As for the voice acting, there is a ton of it, the longest you will go (going at the normal rate) without chatting is a matter of 20 seconds. In fact you may have to stop and let the dialog finish if you want to hear it all. The dialog itself is probably the most just as if not more (which it really is) memorable than what you hear in Star Fox 64 and Masahiro Sakurai gave a lot of liberty to Nintendo of America to write this game in our native tongue. So if you end up enjoying the story of Kid Icarus: Uprising, please thank Nintendo of America for this wonderful translation and dubbing job. Unfortunately for Otaku purists, there is no Japanese voice track, so you’re “stuck” with Pit telling the Cerberus to play dead and to be a good Nintendog. The musical score will be most familiar to fans of the original Kid Icarus on the NES and nostalgia will gush at your ears as it is modernized with orchestrated pieces of what you used to hear in 8-bit Nintendo tones. There are some original pieces for fans not familiar with the original Kid Icarus which sounds epic and provides the proper tone for the scenario going on. Headphones is a must to get the most out of this experience audio wise.

His name is Pit and he's sorry to keep you waiting!

Conclusion

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a game that does justice to the 3DS library big time. We know there’s those out there who can’t be tickled by Mario anymore and this game is for those people.  It’s a game that’s polished with mixed bags but good outweighing the bad. The strengths are that  Uprising has a light-hearted yet full of depth story, it’s presentation is fantastic, its online gameplay is addicting and provides a broad perception of challenge for the single player campaign. Like the original Kid Icarus though, there is a single gaping flaw and that is some slightly questionable slippery controls but even the most pickiest player can overcome and end up loving this game, plus, unlike the original, this lets you balance out any frustrations you have with the game with some customizable controls and difficulty. You have 25 chapters and endless online multiplayer waiting for you! If you own a 3DS you need to buy this game, with its own fantastic merit, you also need to show Nintendo that 3DS owners and Nintendo gamers are interested in more than a fat plumber that has to save some princess, an elf that can only scream like a hyena in green that also has to save some princess and animals that can only say their own name because this is the most original thing Nintendo has put out in recent memory. I have been begging for a new Kid Icarus to come for my entire life and now after roughly 2 decades of waiting, it’s finally here and it’s great.

8.9

Buy It Now!

The story of Ninja Gaiden 3, while only having few ties to the previous installments, it can come off just as if not more convoluted than the previous games, which at least played it safe as a ho-hum Ninja-based action movie. This time Team Ninja has enlisted Masato Kato to write for Ninja Gaiden 3, who has had previous work with the original NES trilogy’s storytelling and Chrono Trigger. That DOES sound like a good reputation and sounds like the story will come out alright, yes? No, as good as those games just previous listed were, their stories were great but have questionable plot presentation, however, came through with big payoffs to give the players closure and sense that their time has been respected. This is what happens when he fails at giving those last qualities that can redeem such story that makes you shake your head in disbelief of the story you are even being told in the first place!  Ninja Gaiden 3 opens up with Ryu Hayabusa slaughtering baddies, the thing he’s known to do finest. The opening minutes of Ninja Gaiden 3 will attempt to tug at your heartstrings as one last enemy remains, leaving you with a sole option of approaching him and slaughtering him only moments after he begs for his life, exclaiming that he was only following orders and that he has a wife and kids. This is exposition in writing at it’s weakest and one of the many shoe-horned attempts at a more depth plot as this is a repeated practice in Ninja Gaiden 3. I’ve seen better exposition from Basil Exposition in an Austin Powers movie.

Oh please Ryu, have mercy on Thug No.2, he has a wife and kids, spare this generic who we have known for all of 2 whole minutes, please!!!

Here in Team Ninja’s latest outing we follow Ryu’s journey that deals with a cult of alchemists that are looking to create a New World Order, having Ryu be the spur of such, he is cursed by having his right arm absorbing his Dragon Sword applied with the terms of bearing all of the hundreds of people that have been slain by sword, making the biblical quote “you slay by the sword and you die by the sword”  play a much more literal plot device. Throughout the struggle with one’s self to be a trained killer punished for his own killings, somehow there’s deviation from what you think would be the most interesting thing with this cult group of alchemists in the fray, somehow we end up with a story that’s really about creating a new world order of dictatorship as if we’ve never heard of such a story before! Not to mention somehow cloning of humans and dinosaurs get in there somehow—ugh, can you see what went wrong here? While it’s nice to see Ryu’s human side (even though it can be a side that talks WAY too much for a Ninja and not always in a good way), the villains seem to have no real agenda and there’s one villain in particular who makes speeches more hammy than William Shattner. Not to mention tons of terribly executed double crosses and being in an implausible situation all of the time kind of takes away from what could be a very in depth story and turns it into something as surprising as a Michael Bay movie having explosions in it. It doesn’t help on top of it when Ryu continuously slaughters  more and more enemies without any philosophical thought into why he has his curse in the first place.  Even though it overall comes off as a mediocre story, it’s very appreciated that it tries to go for something more of a complex character study of Ryu Hayabusa which will intrigue players WHEN focused on – It’s just a shame that the game doesn’t focus on what it advertises: the focus of Ryu’s more human side. I’d even let this mess of a story slide (while mildly entertaining, in a good or bad way and sometimes dare I say it, even tugging at your heartstrings), in comparison to it’s other problems.

Minutes of within beginning to play Ninja Gaiden 3, aside from the rushed exposition, you’ll find it’s easy to spot changes as a Ninja Gaiden veteran. Your choice of weapons is now shrunk down from a huge toybox of weapons to play with to the lone option of wielding a sword plus your bow and “Ninja Stars” which barely work and can seem an awfully pointless . After the fantastic way weapons were handled in Ninja Gaiden II, it makes you wonder why they would simplify it like this. You will take your uni-weapon Ninja through linearly designed levels with no branching paths what so ever this time, not even for treasure chests since all hidden objects have been abolished. There will be checkpoints in between sections of enemies but there is a more old-school save system given when you run into member of fowl who will save your progress, as checkpoints will only act as a placeholder in your current game session between the actual save points. Your only goal is to get through the level and survive the onslaught of many enemies, with mixtures of platforming segments in between, walls to climb and a few puzzles. Outside of the singleplayer, there’s a multiplayer option that feels extremely like an afterthought. Some reviewers would deck points off Ninja Gaiden II for not having multiplayer! Not everything needs multiplayer and it shows here. There’s a rankings system and all with it, letting you have co-op or competitive play. Co-op gameplay can be fun tackling challenges with eachother, however once you get to the competitive, it feels like a button  mashing contest, where the winner dies last! let’s just say you better stick with Dead or Alive 5 for your chances at Team Ninja competitive multiplayer action, provided that it doesn’t fall flat like this game has.

Which one of these ninjas can button mash their way to victory!? (It's not worth finding out the answer to that question)

It is to be known that I am a total fanatic of the Ninja Gaiden series.  I loved the original Nintendo Entertainment System classics for their sense of storytelling which rewarded me for all of the difficult platforming I had to use my Nintendo Hard skills for and I found a different kind of love for the new Ninja Gaiden games on the original XBOX and XBOX360 which provided that same sense of difficulty but with hack-slash action instead which would normally be an option for those who have distaste for button mashing found in other competitors of the hack-slash genre being God of War, Devil May Cry and ESPECIALLY any Koei Warriors game being Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors or Warriors Orochi which are considered the polar opposite of what is usually Ninja Gaiden. The gameplay of Ninja Gaiden 3 in comparison to the previous installments have taken a major downfall and have been streamlined, if that’s even the proper word to describe this. It’s basically a troll to those who found faith in the NG series in response to detesting such games like Koei Warriors. From right when you go in, you will notice that you can start mashing on the light attack button and it seems to go on autopilot from there as long as you are pressing something you should be okay! Mashing the button will automatically make Ryu turn and slash towards the nearest enemy, when that enemy perishes and you’re still mashing, Ryu will automatically swing and advance towards the next enemy, as stated before, auto-pilot via. button mashing. You can mix up attacks by alternating between the light attack and heavy attack buttons, but you’ll tend to abuse one maneuver of your liking over and over again. I have cleared sections of enemies without even looking at the screen and that is dreadful. You will have to deal with this plus the fact that sections will go on for almost over 5 minutes at a time in the same area. It doesn’t help that you only carry one main weapon to do this with, making it very monotonous very fast. It’s pretty dreadful. When you kill enough baddies, your arm will glow letting you slaughter many enemies in a row teleporting between as many as 5 enemies or sometimes it will make things go in slow motion because Ryu is in pain (as if we need a slowdown on repetitive combat). There’s also a Ninpo (magic) meter that fills up and when you unleash the spell (yes THE spell for there is only one the entire game), it will produce a move that kills all of the enemies on screen and replenish all of your health (which also happens if you manage to clear a section of enemies). Does this sound familiar? *cough*MosouMove*cough* Let’s make it fully clear if not then. The heart feels pierced by the common Ninja Gaiden veteran such as myself and it’s unbelievable to make this comparison: Ninja Gaiden 3 has fallen to the simplicity and mashing of Dynasty Warriors games.

Like Dynasty Warriors, the game feels extremely padded by tons of enemies on screen, sections will have 50 enemies where only 10 can be on screen at a time where you kill one, another from the pool of remaining enemies spawns, all of which feel like a lazy copy and paste job. What might make it even possibly fall below a Mosou game such as Dynasty Warriors, is the fact that the difficulty is inconsistent. At least with Koei Warriors games it’s consistently mindless and even at times stress-relieving after a long day! This is not, in fact it would be if it weren’t for the segments that only stop you from button mashing by having one of the goons in the pack shooting a rocket launcher at you camping from a far away distance or due to the terrible camera (forgot to even mention it’s a camera worse than the past two games) having bad guys jump at you and pulling off combos that take anywhere from between a quarter to half your life. No matter which difficulty setting you choose, this is what you have to face. Having to go through 30, 40, 50 and a couple instances (at least it feels like it) 100 enemies, if you happen to take that cheap death the checkpoint puts you all the way at the beginning of the waves, which can feel like a total slap in the face to the players time. My thumb actually starts to hurt so much, I wouldn’t be surprised if I developed a case of Arthritis! Between the huge case of quantity over quality with the enemies and cheap deaths, Team Ninja has adapted a cheap case of game extension in the worst way, as if the game has stuffed Viagra pills down it’s throat much like Team Ninja shoves silicone in the chest of women. There’s padding all over eh? You can literally walk only 3 steps after you’re given a checkpoint (if they’re even being merciful) via. defeating a section of enemies and ANOTHER section comes your way, with no breathing room. There’s really nothing to do in this game except move forward down corridors and slaughter and even that is nerfed, which will take you all in about 10 hours to complete.  Sure there’s some quick-time events shoved in there, but they don’t add anything to the game and they give you too much room for error and bosses in this game are probably only meant for you to not fall asleep while playing, being that they ramp up the cheapness more than a dollar store and they flood in with unfairness more than the average criminal defense attorney.  In my Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus Review I said to “wait for Ninja Gaiden 3″ instead! Well, you can forget it, because a rehash of an 8 year old game is better than this and that’s a bit sad.

I'm sorry, I lost focus on what is going on due to the constant button mashing I have to keep up with so..what's this story about now? He caught cancer in his arm or something?

Looking at what Ninja Gaiden 3 presents you with, is also overall mediocre like the rest. It’s graphical engine is tolerable, nothing special but actually a downgrade from Ninja Gaiden II. It was advertised that Ninja Gaiden played at 60 frames per second. It looks like when Itagaki actually left Team Ninja though, he must have taken 30 of those frames with him to work on his next project, because I have no idea where the other 30 frames are! Dismemberment has been removed from this game, there’s still plenty of blood splatter but dismemberment was a key feature of Ninja Gaiden that played into the strategy of combat being that in Ninja Gaiden 2 enemies would still come at you hopping on one leg with their other being  chopped off. It more so feels like Team Ninja has been the one’s castrated with their decisions regarding this game. (It’s kind of disappointing that dogs have to be part of the slaughtering as well, no joke doggies do get killed in this game, hundreds of them) As for the voice acting, Ryu is chattier than ever in this game than in the previous games, though he has a good voice actor, it still sounds like he had a long day all of the time before recording his lines. As for the main villain introduced in the beginning of the game, his dialog is so laughably bad when he’s talking about destroying the world in 7 days, I’m finding it a comic routine. So when Ryu and the main villain are talking with eachother, it feels like it’s underacting vs. overacting. What makes it worse is that the main villain will spill his hammy speeches during boss battles, so you’ll have to button mash and deal with bad voice acting at the same time, the ultimate torture. The rest of the voice cast though do a great job to save a script that seems to be lost in translation a lot of the time and most of the supporting cast sounds believable enough to keep the emotions strong.

These two clashing is a battle of underacting vs. overacting in the art of dubbing! Who shall win? They both lose because they are equally insufferable or have a reverse effect of make the player die laughing!

Conclusion

Ninja Gaiden 3 is a game that suffers from a terrible case of streamlining and plain laziness in gameplay development. All of this has turned this franchise for the hardcore anti-button masher crowd to something of mere mediocre mashing. It also could have been one of the most interesting games of the series but Ryu’s character study took a backseat to the painful repetitive slaughtering. The redeeming factors are far and few in between and overall the departure of Itagaki from Team Ninja sees no good in the future of Ninja Gaiden. The same feeling was felt for many with Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom on the NES and it happens again, making it the 2nd time one of my favorite beloved franchises dies as if the name Ninja Gaiden 3 was destined for disappointment. At most this game is a rental, but the average player’s time is worth more spent somewhere else than Ninja Gaiden 3

5.5

Buy It Now!

Uncharted: Golden Abyss’s formula goes like this: Chapter starts, you’re usually given a linear path to go, there are obstacles to climb, enemies to take out (you have to be resourceful with your ammo and conserve when needed or you will be burnt to a crisp and die) and puzzles to solve. The basic Uncharted formula was always described as “modern day Tomb Raider done right”. While this happens, you are given cut scenes that will tell a story as you request, it can be described like playing through a movie about surviving in the wilderness. Golden Abyss on Vita looks beautiful even on a smaller HD screen. It really shows that handheld gaming is looking better and better as time goes on, Golden Abyss is about at the standards of a 2007 PS3 game, more specifically Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. Frame rates are top notch and visuals are beautiful. Oh did I mention once again the voice of Nathan Drake, Nolan North IS FANTASTIC! On top of the already good voice acting, Nolan North is like the Chuck Norris of voice acting in video games and this is only complimented by the great care of the voice cast chosen by Sony, as the characters are also written well, no complaints about any of them at worst, they can just be blandish, at best, they can be extremely interesting.

Nolan North, your voice could make a baked potato sound sexy, so what does that make Nathan Drake sound?

Presentation is top notch here. I will say one complaint is that the story isn’t the best Uncharted story I’ve seen, it seems to gone back to the first Uncharted’s style. It is a prequel, though there’s only so much you can hold on that, this story takes place before majority of the interesting events in the Uncharted series and it can hurt a little. Characters are still believable and the story is at least up to pace of a good old action movie..but that can sometimes hurt as it can be sometimes either be too cliche..or a bit of a slow-paced story, however, it can pick up incredibly fast and if cut scenes bore you enough, there are hidden objects in midst of cut scenes, letting you pluck at them throughout, which is a neat feature. It feels like “classic” Uncharted (I use the term classic loosely, because Uncharted 1, while an amazing game, it’s dated in comparison to the later 2 installments of the trilogy but it was a stepping stone). The overall experience, however is fun and thrilling, the story is very well written, the player should not let the few nicks here and there let it ruin their experience. You will be interested in the 10-15 hours worth of content in this game, as most people like to describe Uncharted as: “Tomb Raider done right”.

The gameplay of Uncharted is fun and thrilling most of the time, though by now it’s nothing super new. At first you might feel underwhelmed, it can be a bit slow-paced but it starts to pick up and get all that Indiana Jones feel. It will throw all sorts of different types of obstacles at you, things to climb, things to dig up and a bit of cinematic (realistic) platforming as well though when I say platforming, I don’t mean as much as the pure cinematic platformer, Prince of Persia. The controls to do these things are pretty tight and actually the touch screen is put to good use here, Drake will climb in the direction your finger is from him. Vita controls are very well implemented, though I think the touch screen QTE’s might have been a bit much, having to drag your finger across the screen in the indicated direction during a fist fight, cutting through branches in your path and dodging certain things.

Wall running is probably one of the most fun things in Uncharted. It makes you feel adventurous.

Most of the combat you participate in Golden Abyss, is shooting. The shooting mechanics are of standard for a third-person shooter, though nothing to write home about. Carrying two weapons at once is a fine limitation, as uncharted is supposed to give a feeling of being well “uncharted”, lost, having to use whatever resources you have around to survive. Uncharted can be comparable to what Resident Evil is supposed to be in the jungle-like setting. The shooting mechanics are pretty standard-fare, aim your reticle in over the shoulder mode, hide behind the amazing cover system that Uncharted has to offer and pop-up while those enemies are reloading.  This amazing cover system can also be used for stealth, as well as the cover system can also be used while climbing and you will have to hang on some rectangle-shaped object, with enemies shooting on both sides, having to constantly hop over and hang on from each side, during scenes where you are climbing, the challenge while shooting is that you cannot hold a two-handed weapon, meaning you are stuck with a handgun of some kind, increasing the challenge of the game, keeping it fresh.

Golden Abyss’s structure is very linear, but that has always been the formula of the Uncharted series and even if this weren’t Uncharted, for this genre this is what’s expected as the presentation plays out like a cinematic adventure, presenting you with interesting conflicts and obstacles along the way while giving the player a movie-like atmosphere. The naysayers of Uncharted may usually have no appreciation for the fine art of movie production values and design choices in video games. Grab a bowl of popcorn as you sit down with your headphones plugged into your Vita (highly recommended if you want the full experience) and enjoy the show, while you are playing through the greatness that is Uncharted. If you can’t enjoy the rich movie-structured experience, well then may I direct your attention to the Infamous series which gives a more open structure?`

Yes, aim as low as possible, it's the answer to all problems in life.

You know that game you play to show off the new handheld system to your friends? Uncharted: Golden Abyss is it, as it’s the most and I really do mean the most beautiful game on a handheld to date. Your friends will look in awe as you have a Playstation Vita and they don’t. It’s pure eye candy that will be a system seller. Golden Abyss  is a technical marvel for handheld gaming and will forever be known as the little game (Vita cartridges are the smallest cartridges to date) that could and it will give the 3DS some steep competition. It’s amazing how well this game functions on a handheld, as in the earlier days of the Playstation 3, if you mentioned the idea of an Uncharted game on handheld, you would be committed to a mental facility. However, it’s time to let you out mister looney bin because if you thought it was a good idea you are now considered sane again and you should check yourself out of the hospital immediately. If you have a friend in the mental hospital because of this, you better go get him out as well, Uncharted is now on handheld and it rocks. Is that really a mental disease? A case of the “Unchartedcanbegoodonhandheldsitus?” Well if it is, it no longer should be!

Golden Abyss does however impose some problems, such as having to dust off or examine 100% of an object, by rotating the Playstation Vita or touching on the screen, simulating the rubbing of dust off or turning the object around. It can be quite a drag when you’re stuck with 98% of an item dusted off or examined and the game not letting you progress until it reaches 100%. This only slows down the game and it makes you wonder why the developers would want to put any haults to such an exciting experience of a game? It can feel a bit boring and frustrating, you will suddenly feel a sigh of relief when 99% finally turns to 100% while examining or cleaning an object. As stated before, aside from this gripe, even the whole feel in general throughout the course of the game, can feel underwhelming and boring throughout the course of this game, however upping the difficulty might fix that feeling with combat, it may not with the wandering around portions of Uncharted.

The stealth in Uncharted is creative and it is fun for all players, except for this poor goon who will have to pay.

Vita controls such as aiming your rectile by moving around the Vita can be halted thankfully in the options menu if it’s not to your liking though, it is a lot more accurate on paper than it is fiddling with control sticks and it may be hard to go back to controlling with shooting mechanics with dual-analog sticks, much like the Wiimote or Playstation Move has done to some gamers. No matter what though, when balancing, you must tilt the Vita to stay afloat, tilting too far to the left or right will cause you to fall and plummet to your doom if pit below is present, though thankfully any frustration of deaths in this game is negated by the not too mean but not too frequent checkpoints, that will start you over basically from right after the most recent group of goons you’ve defeated or after the most recent cut scene, whichever is the latest.

Something else that may be a gimmick (as all first-party companies will have them) throughout every Sony-facilitated title, having to go through menus ONLY by touching on the screen. That can be quite bothersome as this is also how you have to control the Vita’s menu in the first place. Dear Sony, may you please stop forcing us to maneuver through menus on the home menu and first-party software, it would be nice to have a choice. Despite the above qualm, the Vita is very well represented by it’s controls, you might even describe this is how Uncharted would play on a smartphone (though not with those pesky virtual buttons and control-pads, you can always use the dualsticks) and it basically is what the Vita will be about for many years to come.  Virtually every Vita function is usable in this game, Uncharted Golden Abyss is an amazing tech demo for Vita as well as a full game.

Conclusion

Uncharted: Golden Abyss may not be as strong as it’s console brethren, however as a handheld game it’s a technical marvel, obviously Naughty Dog not developing this game shows, but Bend Studio seems to have done it well for it’s first crack at Uncharted. The action-adventure genre can grow and prosper on handhelds, as The Legend of Zelda had it’s turn on the 3DS, Uncharted now has it’s turn, while Vita may not have been the strongest push, what it has to offer at launch is one of the most incredible things seen for a dedicated console handheld to date. Is it the best handheld game ever? No, but it’s surely a step that any handheld gamer can be proud of, the $50 price tag may seem steep for some, the experience tries to fill it shoes to be worthy of that price, with 34 chapters of content, this isn’t a brief adventure. This is a system seller already at launch. For Uncharted fans, this is a must-buy and if you own a Playstation Vita this early on, you really have no choice but to go get this game.

8.8

Buy It Now!

The Tales series is a Japanese RPG series that feature real-time action, with linear motion battle systems as a feature, most notably with free-range as of late for the 3D series, featuring multiple lines to target the opponent of your choosing. For RPG  players who horror the idea of dated turn-based mechanics, this may be the first detail to sell you. Tales of Graces is the first game from the minds of Tales of Destiny, the minds behind Symphonia and Vesperia have taken a backseat and have worked on another Tales game that is already completed and waiting to be localized to western shores, speaking of which, the entire presentation of this game might make you notice that this was a Wii game that came out in 2009. For a port, it’s a lot less of a mess than I had thought it was going to be, however in comparison to even previous Tales games, the environments are definetly not drab and have pretty decent texture design this time around. Going in this was a good sign, I wasn’t used to Tales games with this much detail, especially those FMV cut scenes that are beautifully done and well animated. As for the music, it’s pretty hit or miss, when it does miss, it’s usually those criminally short loops, when it hits, it hits very well. I personally enjoy the opening intro theme, though I like Japanese Pop music so that may not suit you.

The story begins in Lhant, where we follow the story of Asbel Lhant, the next successor of the throne in his father’s place as Lord of Lhant. At the beginning of the game, characters start off around 10 years of age, the voice actors of the young characters do a fantastic job, it honestly tickled my heart. It’s a shame however that this portion of the story is tainted by the poorly written character that is Asbel’s father. You’re supposed to actually want to see him again after the time lapses seven years into the future but that was a dreadful performance. Speaking of the time lapse, we rejoin Asbel 7 years who runs off deciding to be a knight instead of the Lord of Lhant and where we also run into a downgrade (but still not terrible) voice actors who play the older versions of the characters, who also don’t seem exciting with the exception of 2 characters, we have Sophie who’s voice actress does a fantastic job at a simple-minded character while providing either lines of obliviousness that come off as cute or coming off as very dry humor due to the monotone pitch of her voice which will make you start to wonder which of the two is happening as the game progresses. The 2nd exception is Pascal who is the total opposite of blandness with voice acting, her ignorance is something that seems light-hearted and something that will make you chuckle. She’s very flamboyant and reckless yet a slightly concealed past that makes you wonder what she has to offer. The inclusion of one-liners from all characters is still welcome, everyone still has their funny moments.

It's nice to meet you too Pascal! <3's back at you!

English is your only option of voice acting to begin with as there is no Japanese audio in the North American localization, so any hardcore Otaku gamers out there will be out of luck, though you’ve most likely already imported this game from Japan anyways! It is very commendable how far Tales games have come with localization in general, we’ve gone from Tales of Symphonia having all skits silenced to Tales of Graces where every skit is voiced and we even have full portraits of the characters speaking during the skits, which are also placed at very opportune landmarks, instead of wandering around waiting for that next skit to pop up. The localization of this title is easily one of the best efforts from Namco Bandai in North America of the entire Tales series.

Tales of Graces runs into the test of emotions of reuniting with old friends and seeing some change or not change and it’s honestly a gripping part of the story of friends who retain a bond after all of this time and it’s executed very well. Unfortunately, however, lot of what happens in Tales of Graces is predictable and you’ll find yourself coming to conclusions before any of the characters can figure out those said conclusions, despite this you’ll still feel the genuine moments between the characters, even if you seem to get everything before you’re supposed to. As touching as moments between main characters can be, it just feels like the characters don’t take a risk within the design of themselves. When a Tales game takes a risk with the main character, if it turns out to pay off, you get Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia, if it’s a risk that failed, you get Luke Fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss. When a Tales game takes no risk, like this installment, you get characters like Asbel Lhant, who have nothing annoying about them but nothing exciting at all, they’re just bland, it feels like he lost personality with age! It’s better safe than sorry, so it’s best to look at the glass half full than half empty, Asbel still comes off as a likable character.

Uhh..I'm sorry Asbel, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Cheer up, I'll make it up to you and buy you a baked potato, that way you'll see you're not the only one with your personality.

The main meat of this game is the gameplay of course, Tales of Graces is by far one of the best battle systems of the entire series. It’s totally revamped and a lot has changed: Technical Points are abolished and is replaced by the Chain Capacity system making it’s western shore debut, where instead of relying on items that refill your TP, it’s the amount of artes you can chain together which will recharge after the chain is over. Every move you do is an arte, regular moves are A-Artes, the amount of CC each A-Arte consumes is equal to it’s chronological placement in the combo up to 4 hits (first hit A-Artes are worth 1, second hit A-Artes are worth 2, etc., making a 4-A-Arte chain worth 10 CC to execute. There are special B-Artes which are magical maneuvers seen in previous Tales games. The addition of the side-step system is very welcomed as dodging straight forward moves now comes with ease. If that’s not complex enough for you, the enemy weakness system has been totally revamped, there are 19 weaknesses that enemies might have, each Arte contains an element, the game will force you to take advantage of this system by making you use artes that carry the element of weakness.

Asbel and Sophie are such melonheads. Wait Asbel, shouldn't that be a baked potato on your head?

The battle system may seem overwhelming and complex and gives off the feel of a huge learning curve but any form of real time JRPG literacy you may have will kick in and you will most likely get used to it, while at the same time Tales of Graces appears to be a button masher, it’s not, button mashing will not get it done here, discretion will be needed to progress through this game. Though it’s a shame that in battle, you can no longer set up pre-planned strategies to switch between, any adjustments to attack patterns you will have to pause in mid-battle and set them yourself, which is contradictory to the pace Tales of Graces tries to set, you would think after the best form of quick swap of strategies in Tales of Vesperia, the Tales Studio would only improve their battle design over the years. Something that has gotten quicker in it’s place is the character switch system, you can switch the character you’re controlling with a press of one of the four directional buttons, you can even use this to EXTEND combos if you are a true Graces master. Tales always gives a  message to better yourself as a player when it comes to the battle system, though the standard difficulty level may feel like a joke for veterans, so it’s advisable to play on hard if you want the full RPG experience of preparing yourself before heading out on your objective, though if your reflexes are a bit shot, maybe it’s best to go at a lower difficulty setting.

With the abolishment of TP, no more having to hoard up Orange Gels and Lemon Gel’s to keep your self occupied and no more running out of TP in mid-boss battle and being up a creek without a paddle, pandering to the belief of modern day convenience for JRPGs. The cooking feature of Tales has also now all done at once in shops, alongside dualizing substances to craft weapons, armor and enhancement jewels, you can also dualize food, no more cooking in between fights, you have all the cooked food on you already, in fact, you have an eleth mixer that cooks food in mid-battle automatically with ingredients you set up pre-battle. Another great design that’s even better, all cut scenes are skippable if you have seen them already and the text moves by itself if desired to do so, no more mashing on X to progress a cut scene and it can play out like a cinematic movie. Speaking of modern day conveniences, at the click of a button you can see your main objective, which means no more getting lost and wandering around for hours before facepalming in realization what you missed.

The title’s system has also been revamped as well, progressing at certain points of the story will earn your character a title, titles can also be obtained with side tasks or with certain repeated actions in battle. Each title contains 5 skills, build up with Skill Points earned after every battle, you can have your titles automatically change after learning all 5 skills, though you can still master a title beyond the 5 skills, it’s up to you which titles and skills you want. Some titles may even provide costumes for fan service, so you can play a little “dress-up” as well. The titles will provide a lot of lasting appeal and give completionists their moneys worth as there are an abundance of titles.

Asbel has earned the title: Charming Baked Potato! (Okay I swear that's the last joke at the expense of Asbel's personality)

This may sound like a cliche review complaint about Japanese RPG’s, but for those looking for an RPG to play with huge overworlds with sidequests to check out by visiting previous towns, going off the path, turn away now, this game is not for you. Linearity is one thing, but it goes overboard and it will drive you insane. Every instance you try to go off the main path, you get bombarded by an invisible wall followed by a notification, you can’t go that direction, no detours, etc. It’s a problem that commonly plagues the JRPG genre and gets them their criticism of confining you to your destination even when there are multiple paths to take, you can only go one, even when nothing crucially important is going on in the story. Invisible walls are not only a bane on RPGs it’s a bane on gaming in general and an insult to the intelligence of the player, as if the player isn’t intelligent enough to figure out what is the wrong way. Developers who do this need to have more faith in the players because it’s just insulting. On top of this, sidequests are absurdly limited to checklists, where you may already have such items on hand just from the main quest in general or you may have accidentally sold it. There’s little motivation for these “sidequests” due to the lack of imagination and story behind them besides rewards. It feels lazily thrown together, on top of which, any monster hunting quests have been put on the title screen of the game in “Trials of Graces”, where you can reap rewards by doing extra challenges.

I swear this has to be illegal in some states. You have to deal with this for 30+ hours. Poor little Asbel can't cross a bridge because of an invisible wall of linearity. Maybe kids wouldn't cross the street without their parents if these invisible walls existed in real life.

It’s a shame that the RPG spirit of exploration is lost when any fetching and monster hunting are downgraded to compact checklists, it gives a message that Tales Studio was scared to even try to connect sidequests to the main story, while there are some exceptions to this complaint, they are far and few in between, even Eternal Sonata which features the same type of linearity Graces has, provides legit challenges on the side for the player to complete not in the form of a checklist. That far and few in between mentioned early includes mini-games/puzzles that your 10 year old sibling could beat standing on their head that are laughably easy (though they can be fun) such as a block puzzle and a card game, the card game however provides fan service, you can find cards scattered all over the overworld where each one has a different Tales character throughout the entire series. Then are a few (and I mean few) optional cut scenes to find as well.

 If the above complaint doesn’t scare you off, Tales of Graces will take you around 30-40 hours depending on your pacing, plus a 10hr post-game session which is what the f stands for at the end of Tales of Graces, being the Future Arc, on top of that, you have an EX game that will let you spend points to choose what from your previous run gets carried over or any special perks, making your next run of the game refreshing, which has always been a staple of the Tales series. Before the final verdict is given, it needs to be said, it’s a lucky break for this game being the last JRPG to come out before the standards take a huge wake up call with Xenoblade Chronicles hitting North American shores. The standards raise and this genre’s bar will have been raised, so Tales Studio and any other developer making an RPG on a home platform, you have been warned to step up your game, any future game of the genre will be looked at with more discretion.

Conclusion

Tales of Graces is a great JRPG that traded off qualities with other games in the series. It will be apparent that Tales fans will now be divided due to these trade-offs, despite this, weither you oppose or support these trade-offs, this game is worth your time, maybe you could find a better title of the genre to play, but you should not overlook this game. The story is unique, fun and your heart will be warmed despite the setback of predictability while the battle system is very exciting and fast-paced. If you want to see a decent template of how to do a modern-convenient Tales game or RPG in general, this game is it. If you own a Playstation 3 and you’re starved of a Japanese RPG, you should pick up this game.

8.1

Buy It Now!