Xevious (NES) Review

 

Xevious (NES) Review

Release Date: September 1988

Date Played: 16 January 2022

Introduction:

Xevious is an early and highly influential vertical shmup developed and released by Namco to arcades in 1982. Although it is very primitive and simple by today's standards, it laid the ground work and invented many of the common elements we see in shmups to this day. It was then ported to every console and computer under the sun and was extremely prolific in the pop culture scene of the time. The NES version, released in 1988, is fairly true to the arcade version and is a decent port that I am choosing to review here today. 

Hardcore Gaming 101's publication, Guide to Shoot 'em Ups Vol. 3 Devotes nine entire pages to the original Xevious game while every other game in the guide has 2-3 pages on average. You can tell that they considered the game to be extremely important and worthy of so much reflection and even chose to begin then entire volume with this game despite it's title falling last alphabetically. It's a very important entry in the history of video games and I feel like the title is well known to pretty much every gamer out there even if they haven't played it. Although it has faded from popularity over the years and has a very basic gameplay structure, it is one of the most important shooters every made and is still very addictive and remains a bona fide classic.

Story and Legacy:

Much like many of the games that came in the early 80s, there is no in-game story to speak of. Instead, the story is usually pieced together from outside sources like the game's instruction manual.  In the case of Xevious, there was a pop culture boom centered around the game and it led to the creation of comics, artwork, novels, cartoons, and even a terrible and very rare animated movie.  I won't get too deep into the lore of the game and it's overly complex and oddly fleshed out story here because there just isn't enough room... and, honestly, it's a little embarrassing that so much effort was put into the background of such a simple and seemingly superficial game. But, I will give a brief synopsis to whet your whistle. 

Basically, from what I can piece together, there was an alien race who populated Earth long before the humans.  A catastrophic event was about to occur, so they fled the planet to find a new home.  Eons later, humanity had taken its place on Earth and was living its normal life when the ancient aliens decided to return.  Before their arrival, a bunch of their technology started sprouting up from the ground in anticipation of their return and wiped out mankind. You play as the pilot of the Solvalou ship and return to Earth to find it completely overrun by the aliens.  So, you do what any good pilot does and you start blasting them to kingdom come while trying to save the world. While even this small synopsis seems like huge overkill for the game, I encourage you to do your own quick internet search and dive into the hilariously complex background story of Xevious.  It's honestly quite shocking.

From all of the pop culture references, story, and insane amount of ports, it's easy to see that the world was enamored with this game. You may ask yourself why this is the case because it's just a simple game where you shoot stuff and there's a million just like it. After some research, you'll soon learn that Xevious introduced several huge developments that were milestones in the gaming world.  Firstly, Xevious was the first game with a vertically scrolling screen.  Up until this point, everything just took place on a static screen like Space Invaders and the backgrounds never moved.  It was also the first shooter to have a background that was anything more than a black screen or starfield.  The developers had to create terrain and different locations in the game to make the player feel like they were going somewhere as the screen was scrolling by.  It's a simple idea, but was revolutionary at the time.  If that weren't enough, the game also introduced the concept of gameplay secrets into the industry. There are hidden towers and other various secret scoring mechanics and 1UPs scattered around for you to discover by bombing certain locations on the map.  This added another element to the already addictive gameplay and caused many an arcade goer to pump extra coins into the machine to try to find all of the secrets that they could.  This, of course, led every other video game company out there to add secrets to their games to inject some much needed novelty to the whole experience.  

If this weren't enough in terms of ground breaking mechanics, Xevious was also one of the first games to introduce the concept of a Boss Fight.  Before this point, games just had more and more progressively harder enemies.  But, this game introduced 4 giant fortresses that you have to stop and battle before you're allowed to continue.  Of course, I don't need to tell you how influential this was to games in the future.  If you've ever played one, you know.

I think I've made my case for how important this game was... and still is.  It took the world by storm and in addition to all of those other "firsts" it still has one more...

Xevious was the first video game to ever have a TV commercial advertising it. No wonder it was a huge success.

Presentation:

In the modern age of 4k gaming and photorealistic graphics, Xevious isn't much to look at.  This was, after all, a game created in the early days and what you see in the screenshots are what you get.  You fly over grassy fields with brown roads.  There's the occasional river, tarmac, desert, and forest thrown in here and there.  But, the whole experience is very monotonous and seems to have only 5 or 6 colors used in the entire game. Other than the enemies and trees, nothing has any texture to it and appears to just be flat and basic shapes. It's par for the course at the time, but doesn't hold up very well anymore.  The game takes place in South America, which is a cool setting for a game, but you would never know it unless you're able to progress far into the game and start seeing the Nazcal Lines in the background.  It's a nice touch and is a memorable part of the game, I only wish that it was introduced earlier in the experience.  Some early variety in the setting would have been a nice touch.

To accompany the gameplay you're given a memorable but bizarre soundtrack.  The startup music is very catchy and fun even if it only lasts about 4 seconds.  However, the music during gameplay is a fever dream of dissonant and seemingly random patterns of 16th notes played in a loop.  It's one of the worst songs I've ever heard in a game to be so prominently featured.  It's grating to the ears and induces a sort of anxiety when you hear it similar to a kid just banging out random notes on a piano at full volume while you're trying to have a conversation with his parents in the same room.  I normally play all of my games with a surround sound setup, and I had to literally disconnect it to play this game because it was so painful to endure.  Not only that, the NES port pauses the music every single time an explosion occurs.  Meaning, that whenever you shoot an enemy, there is a hiccup in the music.  It's such an incredibly bad experience in the sound department that it almost ruins the whole experience. I would advise you to play with the sound turned off.

Gameplay:

While Xevious was basically one of the founding fathers of the genre and created a lot of the mechanics and tropes we still see in the genre, it's gameplay really just boils down to a basic vertical shmup.  You have your ship at the bottom of the screen and you have freedom of motion to move on both the x and y axes.  You have a basic shot and there are no powerups.  In addition to this, you have a reticule set a fixed distance in front of your ship and you can use it to target and bomb enemies on the ground.  I'm not sure if Xevious was the first game to ever use this idea in a vertical shmup (I know Scramble did it in a horizontal shmup), but I always refer to this mechanic as the Xevious Bombing Mechanic in all my other reviews as it's probably the best known example of this.  Other games like the Twin Bee series, Dragon Spirit, and Layer Section all borrow and use this mechanic as well and it's a somewhat common feature in a lot of storied game series. Unfortunately, I feel like it forces you to have to focus your gameplay onto two planes simultaneously and takes away from the fun inherent in the simple nature of a shmup.  You'll have to bomb installations, tanks, and turrets on the ground while also dealing with the onslaught of aerial enemies that come in several different varieties.  They are all very simple visually (some are just a black ball, or a disc, or a basic rocket ship) but have challenging and difficult attack patterns you'll have to memorize. Some can be very annoying like the previously mentioned black balls that seem to vanish right as you're about to shoot them or the tiny enemies that suicide bomb you at lightning fast speed. There is a primitive ranking system that will send different patterns of enemies at you based on how well you're doing or if you've died recently.  It can keep you on your toes and make it difficult to learn the game, but you'll start recognizing the enemy's behavior before too long and will get the swing of things.  In addition to the air and land enemies, there are the aforementioned boss fights which are all identical and involve surviving and huge barrage of bullets from the enemy base until you can bomb its core and advance. 

There are no individual stages in the game and is instead an unending and continual scrolling experience broken up into 16 sections.  These sections try to be varied somewhat with different background layouts and enemy patters, but still come across as repetitive due to the reuse of gaming assets. They are at least broken up by patches of forest that signify their starting and ending points. If you don't have the game memorized, you'll have to manually count these sections to figure out how far you've progressed into the 30min long 1st loop of the game.  If you die you're sent back to the beginning of the section you were currently on (sigh...).  Luckily, if you're cleared 70% of the section, the game takes pity on you and starts you at a checkpoint towards the end.  This is a nice mechanic that I enjoy, but would have preferred respawning right where you die.  Since there are no powerups, you don't really need a checkpoint system other than to frustrate the gamer (and I guess get more quarters in the arcade) and pad out the experience.  The game is pretty fair with its extends and you'll earn an extra life at 20k points and then every 40k after that. With the hidden 1UPs scattered around you can stockpile plenty of lives.

Despite this, the game is still very tough and can seem a bit unfair and unbalanced at times. Many times you'll play for 15 minutes and make it half way through the 16 sections without ever getting hit a single time only to hit a seemingly impossible section where you die over and over again before hitting a game over. Not only are there these huge difficulty spikes, there are also long and boring sections that require almost no effort and you'll just be sitting there not really doing anything other than dodging the occasional indestructible and oblivious enemy.  The game really needs some balancing tweaks and I think these were addressed in the many remakes and sequels to the original.

Once you clear the 16 sections, the game infinitely loops by taking you back to section 7 with an increased difficulty.  There's no real ending to the game and the final goal is to continue to play until the score reaches its max score of 9,999,990 which is much easier said than done.

Conclusion:

Xevious is still a lot of fun to plan and can be quite addictive despite its tedious nature both in terms of gameplay and presentation.  I don't personally like the ground bombing mechanic in shmups because it forces you to position yourself in precarious places in order to hit ground units and makes you have to split your attention between two playfields.  Quite often, as is the case in the Twinbee franchise, this can almost ruin a game for me.  However, in the case of Xevious, everything is so basic and uncluttered that the ground bombing mechanic, while not very likable to me, is still tolerable and does add some much needed variety to the game.  The backgrounds, while revolutionary for the time, are very boring and all seem to blend together and make the while experience even more repetitive.  Couple this with the insane and ear destroying music, and you have a recipe for a shmup that most modern gamers aren't going to want to put any effort into learning.  The extreme difficulty spikes interspersed between long and boring sections only serves to mix an element of frustration into the tedium that really hurts the game overall.  

The game pretty much created the vertical shmup genre as we know it.  It's highly beloved and influential but seems to be the case of an important game where other's stood on its shoulders to create something truly remarkable.  James Naismith might have invented the game of basketball, but you won't hear him mentioned in any lists of the greatest players of all time along side the likes of Michael Jordon, Kobe Bryant, or LeBron James.  I feel like this analogy is a good representation of where Xevious stands in the annuls of shmup history.  

Don't get me wrong, everyone should still play it.  But, I doubt very few modern gamers are going to fall in love with this game if they didn't already have nostalgia for it.

Final Status: Played (can't really be beaten... 5 hours invested)

Final Score: 6/10 (still a little fun)

Gunlord X (Switch) Review

Gunlord X (Switch) Review

Release Date: 22 May 2019

Date Played: 12 January 2022

Introduction:

Gunlord X is an updated port of a homebrew Neo Geo game developed by NG.Dev in 2012.  Created as a bit of a passion project for a insanely expensive and hard to find console, the game was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast before being refined and brought to modern consoles. It is clearly inspired by games like Contra, Metroid, and most importantly Turrican.  It also has a very strong "Euro game" feel to it and looks and plays like a game pulled right off of an Amiga Computer from the 90s.  

Story and Gameplay: You play as Gordan Gaiden, a super soldier, on his mission to rescue his missing wife on a hostile and alien planet from an evil being known as, "The Master."  It's a basic story for sure, but that's nothing out of the ordinary for this style of game where narrative takes a backseat to non-stop action.  

Gameplay is a 2D sidescrolling action platformer.  You traverse the overly large and sprawling levels as you wipe out countless alien enemies, make precarious jumps, explore for items, and fight humungous bosses.  You're given several shots to help you that include a power, spread, and a bounce shot. You can switch between these by collecting different colored tokens at several "terminals" dispersed plentifully throughout the stages.  They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I feel like the bounce shot is greatly overpowered and would be the preferred weapon for almost anyone playing.  You also have screen clearing bombs to help you out.  They aren't overly strong, but several can be collected during each stage and you can stockpile a hefty amount of them.  Sadly, the extra ones are lost if you die. Finally, you have your laser shot which is controlled twin-stick style with the right analog stick.  It can be fired in 360 degrees and will make quick work of most enemies and was my main mode of attack.  It also has the added bonus of destroying most enemy shots and being able to pass through the copious amounts of walls that will block your standard shots from being able to hit the insane amounts of enemies scattered around the levels.  This laser shot is very reminiscent of Turrican's iconic shot type and has an energy bar tied to it.  As you repeatedly shoot, the energy level goes down and decreases your range and attack power. Luckily, when you stop using the laser shot, the gauge refills itself.  Finally, you have a morph ball similar to Metroid's that also empties your energy gauge.  You won't be using it to find very many secret passages, but it is good to add some temporary vulnerability from an onslaught of bullets. I'm a little curious to know why they included the morph ball because outside of the novelty of it, doesn't really seem to be put to good use.

You'll notice right away that the movement and jumping mechanics of Gunlord X are a little stiff and awkward.  It feels like an Amiga game through and through and there's just very little inertia and lift to your jumps.  It almost feels as if most of the jumps need to be pixel perfect and you'll find yourself plummeting from a missed landing quite often.  This isn't a grievous sin, but it does feel a bit clunky compared to some of the great run and gun platformers out there. There is little margin for error when jumping over pits and trying to weave and fight your way through the enemies while doing it becomes irritating quickly when you're also having to fight with controlling your character.

What sets this game apart from most other games of this type (excluding Turrican, again) is the gigantic size and maze-like structure of the stages.  There is a ton of verticality to the stages and tons of nooks and crannies to explore as you make your way through them.  There are also alternate paths, secret walls, and tons of dead ends as well.  You'll encounter plenty of distractions as you work your way through these levels because the game could be better described as a 2D collectathon.  I personally really dislike most collectables in a game, and Gunlord X, in particular, is one of the worst about this I've ever seen.  Throughout the levels are an insane amount of crystals for you to uncover and find.  Each level has a set number of large crystals and small crystals and collecting all of them in a level will grant you an extra continue to permanently help you out. You'll definately want to spend some time doing this because those extra continues are essential.  The big problem with snagging all of these crystals in a stage is that you have to literally collect them ALL.  And, I assure you, this is no easy task because some stages have like 800 crystals in them.  If you miss a single one, you get NOTHING for your efforts and it feels like all of that time you spent exploring was pointless.  Considering some stages took me around a half an hour to complete and the vast majority of that time was trying to find these stupid crystals, I was quickly discouraged.  What makes matters worse is that the developers want you to explore everything while looking for them and it will often lead you to hazardous areas that will end up sapping your health.  They will do things like leave little trails of crystals to lead you off course like a line of cookie crumbs leading a mouse to a trap.  Or, they'll have a segment where you fall down a hole at the end of the level and there will be a random crystal placed in an awkward position that you have no way of knowing is there unless you've already played through the stage several times. At one point, I had like 497/500 crystals in a stage and I was nearing the end of the stage.  The last 3 crystals sat on a platform across a little gap.  I barely missed the jump and fell down below.  Since there was no way to get back up to the platform, collecting those 497 other crystals was completely pointless.  It's all extremely frustrating and pretty much ruins the entire game for me. Traversing these large and poorly thought out stages is an exercise in frustration and the only saving grace to this is that they put little exit signs all around the stages to help lead you to the end if you truly want to skip all of the collectables.  But, unless you're a master gamer, you're going to need to complete at least a couple of complete sets of them to get the continues you need to beat the game.  

The difficulty isn't terribly high, but has some really annoying aspects to it.  Mainly, the enemy placement doesn't seem to have any thought put into it at all.  There are just random aliens put all over the place and they will shoot you from off screen constantly and even kamikaze into you without you knowing they're coming.  Since the levels are so large and sprawling, you're constantly having to make blind jumps and it feels like the developers ALWAYS put some enemy right off screen that you're guaranteed to take a hit from.  It's just a constant bevy of "gotcha!" moments and I hated that it was basically happening all of the time.  This leads you to have to slow your run and gun gaming down to a slow and methodical crawl as you whip your laser shot around you in 360 degrees every time you move forward a few feet just to clear the unseen path ahead of you.  You'll also find yourself jumping upwards multiple times on platforms trying to get the screen to scroll upwards so you can see where you're going and what enemies are there to ambush you.  You only have 3 hits before you die, so you can't be wasteful or to eager to rush ahead.  Luckily, your continues allow you to start back right where you left off in the stage and are extremely valuable.  There are also plenty of 1-Ups scattered around the level to ease the pain. Pleasantly, once you complete a stage, you can restart from there if you run out of continues.  So, no matter how much you're struggling, you should be able to slowly work your way through the game. Of course, this is all a classic example of the sort of poor game design that "Euro" games were so well known for back in the 90s.  Why bother designing coherent and well thought out levels with fair, but challenging, enemy encounters when you can just throw a bunch of random stuff at the player that they can't avoid and then give them a bunch of health items to try to balance it all out?

There are 8 of these huge collectathon stages to complete and I never enjoyed a single minute of any of them.  In addition to this, there are a couple of horizontal shmup stages to add some variety.  Much like NG.Dev's other shmups, these sections feel clunky and poorly planned and even though they're the best part of the game in terms of mechanics, still aren't very fun at all.  The final stage is just the final boss fight, and when compared to the rest of the stages is very brief and rather easy.  This makes it feel totally out of place.  

Presentation:

This is the area where Gunlord X actually shines.  You're greeted initially by a cutscene with retro inspired images to tell the story and the artwork on this is some of the best I've ever seen in a game and is totally awesome.  I own an Neo Geo, and if I had seen this artwork on it, I would have been totally blown away. It's pretty impressive to think that this game originally ran on hardware designed in the mid 80s and still looks good today. You become quickly aware that the character and enemy design and spritework are top notch and look fantastic.  Everything is colorful and has a nice pop to it that really makes it stand out.  It has that hallmark "Amiga" look that so many games from Europe had during the 90s and is very charming. In addition to this, you're given several cool CRT filters to use on the screen if you want to make your game look like you're playing it on an old tube TV.  As someone who plays a lot of games on a CRT even to this day, I prefer to just leave the game in its natural state and enjoy the striking colors without them getting clouded up by artificial scanlines.

As for the music, it seems to be heralded almost everywhere but I found it to be especially bad and was taken aback by how uninspired, monotonous, lazy, and repetitive it was.  It has a sort of smooth Eurotrance style and it doesn't fit with the gameplay at all.  I want some rocking music to pump up the action, not two chords repeated back and forth with a sampled drum beat.  I can't remember much of a melody, hooks, or clever ideas anywhere during the soundtrack and was unable to find any musical themes to grab onto. I splurged on the limited edition of this game because it came with a soundtrack because everyone out there said how I had to hear it and how "rad" it was. And, to tell you the truth, I feel totally ripped off and never want to hear any of this music ever again. The only exception to this is the final shmup stage which has some great music and is quite possibly composed by a totally different person.  It doesn't fit with the rest of the game in any way... and that's a blessing. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

Gunlord X is a pretty bad game that looks pretty good.  It took its inspirations from better games and completely dropped the ball when it came to execution.  The stages are meandering, poorly thought out, and full of frustrating and nonsensical enemy placement.  The game wants you to focus on collecting the hilariously large number of crystals in each section, but trolls you pretty badly by making a large percentage of them obtusely difficult to grab.  Compounding this, if you miss even one crystal in a stage, all the rest of your work is basically worthless because you don't get any benefit from the rest of them.  The controls, combat, and platforming don't feel fluid and are clunky and awkward.  The final nail in the coffin is that all of this frustrating and soul crushing gameplay is accompanied by a very mediocre soundtrack that literally only has one good song.  

At no point during my time with Gunlord X was I having any fun and spent the whole game frustrated and hoping for it to end soon. The only part of the whole experience that was above average was the art direction, bright colors, and stunning work on the cutscenes. I feel like the people at NG.Dev are just a bunch of artists that want to make a game, but don't really understand what makes a game good or fun to play.  I've beaten 3 or 4 of their games up to this point, and every single one of them has been pretty bad or very mediocre at best.  

Final Status: Beaten (11 stages)

Final Score: 4/10 (Pretty bad)

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Review (PS2)

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (PS2) Review

Date Released: 27 November 2003

Date Played: 11 January 2022

Introduction:

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is the sequel to Tecmo's 2001 survival horror game, Fatal Frame.  Although it is highly related to the first game in the series in both terms of atmosphere, gameplay, and lore, Fatal Frame II is its own separate story and requires no knowledge of the first title in order to fully enjoy. According to Wikipedia and several sources, many players were too frightened to finished the first game in the series so the Tecmo team toned down the difficulty on the sequel and even attempted to give it a more interesting story so that more players would have the courage to finish the game this time around. The game was a critical and commercial success and is considered by many to be the best game in the series and survival horror classic.  Not only that, it's widely considered to be one of the scariest video games of all time.  

Story:

Although it isn't a continuation of the first game in the series, Fatal Frame II follows the same basic storyline as the first game with a few variations. The game takes place in 1988 and you play as Mio who is visiting a favorite childhood town with her twin sister, Miyu, before it is destroyed by the construction of a dam.  While exploring the woods of their youth, Miyo becomes entranced by a glowing butterfly and the two girls follow it to a mystical place called "All God's Village."  As the two explore, they soon learn that the village was home to a terrible and grotesque event known as the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual.  In the past, the village was built over the hell gate and this sacrifice had to be performed once a decade in order to appease the evil spirits in the gate and save the town from destruction.  Needless to say, something went wrong and the ritual failed.  This left the village shrouded in darkness and obviously extremely haunted.

As you explore as Mio with Miyu in tow, you uncover journals that fill in the story and explain more about the ritual and its disturbing nature.  In addition to that, you start having flashbacks of the previous events of the ritual that are extremely upsetting and horrifying.  You quickly learn that the ritual requires a pair of twins to be sacrificed to appease the spirits. Being twins themselves, this doesn't bode well for the sisters.  And, in an uncommon and surprisingly logical decision for a horror setting, Mio decides that they need to get out of the village right now. Unfortunately, Miyu is behaving strangely and seems possessed.  As you can clearly see where this is going, Miyu wanders off and you have to rescue her.  

At this point you're all alone as Mio and it's where the game really begins.  You'll soon find yourself beset by a host of macabre and horrid spirits as you explore around the village and its houses trying to locate Miyu and uncover more of the history of the village and its previous inhabitants.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is exactly like it was in the first game and is the "gimmick" and hallmark of the Fatal Frame series.  Instead of attacking spirits directly with a weapon, you instead find the Camera Obscura.  It's an old timey camera that has the ability to exorcise spirits by photographing them. This, along with your flashlight and a handful of healing items, are really the only tools you have at your disposal for dealing with all of the spirits who are actively trying to kill you.  Combat works by looking through the camera's viewfinder and photographing the spirit at the ideal time to deal damage.  This ideal time is usually right as the spirit is directly in your face and about to attack so things can get tense quickly.  Spending more time focusing on the spirit and letting them get closer will deal critical damage to the spirits and is essential to gameplay going so far to the point that certain spirits can only be harmed this way.  These critical shots not only deal orders of magnitude of more damage, they also stun and send the spirits flying backwards and give you more time to line up your next shot.  There is a glow bulb on the camera that gets brighter as you are aiming closer to a spirit and learning to master this is required of you because the spirits will hide, teleport, turn invisible, dodge, and perform any trick in the book to sneak in a hit on you. Doing well in combat will earn you more experience points and items to upgrade the strength of the Camera Obscura and its abilities.  Additionally, there are different types of film that can be collected as you explore.  These have different levels of effectiveness against the spirits in terms of damage dealt and reloading time.  Some of the strongest films are very rare and you'll need to save them for the most dire situations.  This also means you'll need to explore the environments of the game thoroughly to collect any film and healing items that may be hidden away and out of sight. This is a really great combat system that carries with it a great sense of risk versus reward and keeps the tension extremely high.  Not only that, but looking through the camera's viewfinder puts the game into first person mode so the spirits really get right up into your face for maximum fear factor.  You know what else happens when you view something in a first person view?  You can't see what's behind you...

Outside of the combat, you'll be exploring the village in 3rd person view.  It's the tried and true style of most survival horror games of the time with static camera shots from a series of cinematic and sometimes odd angles as your character moves through them.  The tank controls of the early Resident Evil games are pleasantly absent from the Fatal Frame games, but there is still the inescapable issue of walking down a hallway, having the camera angle snap to the next location, which is in a different orientation, and having the direction you press with the analog stick get reversed and you end up running somewhere you didn't intend.  It's a common occurrence in these sorts of games and should be expected if you know what you're getting in to.  However, I will say that the juxtaposition of the camera angles in this game are more extreme and jarring than usual and it's very easy to get disoriented as the camera angles shift.  I had a difficult time getting my bearings quite often and would constantly run in the wrong direction from where I was intending to go.  This led to me constantly having to check my map to orient myself.  Now, normally, I would say that doing this would interrupt the immersiveness of the experience and was a detriment to gameplay; but in the case of Fatal Frame II and it's extremely heavy and terrifying atmosphere... it was a welcome break and I didn't mind it as much.

As you continue to explore, you'll have to solve various puzzles, unlock doors, and find clues in order to continue your progress.  These puzzles typically involve a door blocked by a spirit.  You photograph it and it shows a location somewhere else that you have to find and photograph.  Once you do that, the door will unlock and you can continue. This type of puzzle is unique to the series, and you'll encounter a fair number of them during your 10 or so hours for a first playthrough. The other types of puzzles are finding specific spirits that you have to destroy to get a key item (usually a literal key) to unlock another door blocking your way.  These will oftentimes lead you to a puzzle where you have to make two statues face each other, or line up some spinning wheels to the correct positions, etc.  These are still a fun and much needed staple of the genre and give you a reprieve from the tense gameplay.  Sadly, there are a few times in the game where you're not given what I would consider to be enough information to really know how to proceed with advancing the story.  For example, there's one section where you need to find a key with a bell on it.  You encounter a spirit of a young girl in a white kimono shortly thereafter.  As you see her, there is the audible clinking of a bell which leads you to believe that defeating her will give you the key.  Unfortunately, after she's defeated, no such key is dropped.  Apparently, what you're supposed to do is wander aimlessly around the giant house you're exploring while listening for a bell chime.  Essentially, you're unknowingly playing a game of hide and seek with the girl's spirit.  Ok.... fine.     But, where it gets unreasonable is that you're supposed to do it FIVE TIMES. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong.  I would find the girl, defeat her, and nothing would happen.  I had to look up a walkthrough to help me through this part.  Needless to say, I'm not the only one who got stuck at this point.

In essence, it's the same sort of survival horror gameplay we all know and love.  Other than the novel combat mechanic, there's little in the gameplay department to set it apart from the likes of Resident Evil or Silent Hill.  And... that's a good thing.  

Presentation:

Much like the Camera Obscura adds an interesting twist on the gameplay in the Fatal Frame series, the aesthetic choices also set it apart from its peers.  Rather than have a typical haunted mansion or town set in the West, this series opts for a traditional Japanese setting with wood panel walls, tatami mats, and paper doors.  This blends flawlessly with the Japanese horror setting of the game and makes the player feel like they are in even more strange and foreign environment.  The oppressive greys and browns of the dilapidated wood walls and floors only serve to add more tension to the experience as the player has nothing familiar to cling to for comfort and the Japanese mysticism woven through story and décor only serves to increase this feeling of making the player feel out of their element and truly rounds out the whole experience.  The graphics are quite good for a game of its time and while it does tiptoe around the uncanny valley in terms of character design, they at least appear crisp and well defined. 

On top of the creepy visuals, you're also attacked by the game's magnificent sound design. There are a wide variety of moans, whispered threats, slamming objects, and spine-chilling laughs coming from the ghosts around you.  It's all very unsettling and will make your skin crawl from time to time.  In the segments where Miyu is following you, she'll often say odd and disturbing things that completely abate the tiny bit of solace you would normally get from not being alone.  There isn't much comfort in not knowing if the person you're with might snap at any moment.

On top of all of this, there is a very creepy and ambient soundtrack that fits right along with all of the other terrifying aspects of the game.  It can, at times, make your gameplay session a little too heavy and you'll be begging to find that next save point to take a break and recollect your nerves. These save points were a masterstroke of genius as when you activate them, they play an epic and sweeping song that has almost no element of being dark and sinister.  It's honestly more gorgeous and uplifting than anything else, and can be exactly what the player needs to have their spirits lifted just enough to keep playing for a little longer. I have to hand it to the designers because this was such an incredibly good idea and I wish more games did something like this to motivate the player.

As for the character and enemy design, I feel like it's a bit of a mixed bag.  The spirits are mostly all well designed and frightening with a good amount of thought put into them. But, there are often the occasional fights against the ghost of your average dead villager with a sickle that pads out the combat encounters and feels uninspired. Luckily, for every one of those, you're also given some fantastic and memorable encounters that will stick in your mind for a while. Some of these are fantastic and there are more than a few that really stand out. The Falling Woman encounter is one of the craziest, most disturbing, and unforgettable moments I've seen in a horror game and was my favorite part of Fatal Frame II.  If you decide to play this game, be on the lookout for it. 

As for the main character's design, I have to say I'm not really a fan.  Mio and Miyu don't really feel or look that interesting to me and pale in comparison to the other heroines of the series.  I was so nonplussed by their design and personality that I was finding it a little hard to sympathize with their plight during the game.  I know the developers were going for the naïve, young, and innocent sort of character stylings for these two, but it makes them come across as hollow, incapable, and one dimensional. Miyu, with her constant creepy talk, repeatedly getting lost/kidnapped, ineptitude, and general pathetic demeanor made me want Mio to just abandon her and escape the village by herself.  I feel like this was a pretty big mistake on the part of Tecmo and they could have really elevated the game by putting a little bit more into the characters.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

Fatal Frame II is definitely scary and deserves a lot of the praise it's given.  However, it does have some glaring flaws and issues that need to be addressed.  Firstly, it doesn't set itself apart from the first game enough to make it stand out to me.  It's basically the exact same story as the first Fatal Frame as you're exploring around trying to save someone who is going to be sacrificed to keep the hell gate closed.  This time you're in a village instead of a mansion, but you still spend most of your time inside large houses within the village.  Even though they are different houses, everything has the exact same look to it with grey and brown wood everywhere and other than the layouts and a few special rooms, almost every location in Fatal Frame II looks and feels the same.  It could have benefitted greatly from a little variety in terms of different environments. Also, I don't think the lore and story of the second game equal that of the first one.  The details of the ritual and history of the hell mouth didn't feel as fleshed out this time around and the reason for Mio and Miyu's time in the village felt a little uninspired.  Maybe if I liked the characters better and they were more interesting, I would have been more invested in the story.  The ending of the game is meant to be impactful and shocking, but because of a lack of empathy for the characters, it didn't hit quite as hard as the developers might have wanted and I was ready for the game to be over by this point. There are 3 endings on the PS2 version of the game and I only saw the "canon" ending.  There's an additional bad ending and a special ending for finishing the game on the hardest difficulty. 

While the combat is more refined and far easier than the first game, fighting the spirits can still be a huge pain and hassle.  Unlike zombies and monsters, ghosts can phase in an out, teleport around, walk though walls, turn invisible, and attack you from any direction.  There are a fair number combat encounters in this game where you're in a narrow hallway and there are ghosts attacking you through the walls (sometimes from multiple angles).  You know where they are because of the glow bulb indicator on the camera, but you can't actually see them because the stupid wall is in the way.  Or you're trying to run past an enemy for a better vantage point, but another ghost grabs you from nowhere as you are trying to sneak by.  It can be extremely frustrating when you get hit 7 or 8 times in a row and blow through all of your healing items just trying to get in one single shot on an enemy but you can't because the environment is preventing you from actually playing the game.  I finally decided the best way to do the combat was to just stand still in the middle of the room and wait for the spirits to come to you while turning to face them.

Exploring around, which is usually my favorite part of any survival horror game, is somewhat diminished this time around because of the similarity of all the environments.  Remember when I said I had a difficult time getting my bearings earlier?  Everything is dark and wooden and just blends together in the most murky and boring way. I never got that sense of familiarity with this game as you do with some other survival horror games.  Also, this game is dark.  Not only in terms of setting and mood, but also in terms of the gamma.  When I first turned it on, I couldn't see anything.  I was struggling to make out the characters on the screen and spent 20 minutes or so wandering aimlessly around a room trying to figure out what was wrong.  Looking online, I saw that many people had the same problem.  Even though I play all my retro games on a Sony Trinitron CRT TV that has fantastic lighting on it, I was forced to turn up the gamma in the game to its maximum setting and turn up the brightness on my TV a fair amount.  Even after doing this, I felt like the game wasn't bright enough.  I know that darkness adds a lot of atmosphere and scariness, but you still need to be able to see what you're doing.

Finally, there's the few times where you're stuck in the the, "I don't know where to go or what to do," loop that plagues so many games.  It doesn't ruin the experience, but I definitely had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times to avoid walking around the same bland and repetitive environments over and over trying to figure out how to advance the story. The developers could have increased the enjoyment of the game greatly by giving a bit more direction when it comes to completing these tasks.

Overall, I think that Fatal Frame II is a very good survival horror game and a bonified classic. Saying that it's, "one of the scariest games of all time," could be true for the time when it was released because it's till tense and very creepy almost 20 years later. The game looks very good for a PS2 game and I didn't encounter any bugs or graphical issues whatsoever and there were no technical issues (other than the gamma) that took me out of the experience. Sure, it has a few issues with recycling its ideas from the first game in the series, boring characters, and repetitive environments but still stands out as a worthwhile horror game overall. I feel like the first Fatal Frame edges it out just a  bit in terms of originality, story, characters, and setting.  But, the second game wins in terms of gameplay;  so I guess it's a bit of a wash. 

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is still worth your time if you like survival horror games.  It holds up very well in this day and age and still brings plenty of fear inducing moments and decent gameplay to the table.  If you haven't tried a game from the series, you're missing out.

Final Status: Beaten (10 hours)

Final Score: 8/10 (still great)

Earth's Dawn (PS4) Review

 

Earth's Dawn (PS4) Review

Date Released: 1 November 2016

Date Played: 9 January 2022

Introduction:

Earth's Dawn is a side-scrolling beat 'em up developed by OneorEight games and published by Rising Star Games.  It was quietly released as a budget title to mediocre reviews from both critics and the general public and seemed to fade somewhat into obscurity soon thereafter. As far as I can tell, it's the only game that this company ever made or released. In essence, it's nothing more than a clone of Vanillaware's cult favorite game, Odin Sphere. It has been changed to a sci-fi setting instead of fantasy, but the similarities and inspirations are clear... and blatant.  It can be difficult to tell if a game is highly inspired by another work or if it is just trying to rip-off its ideas and grab a quick dollar by piggy backing on someone else's efforts.  In the case of Earth's Dawn, it's difficult to tell. It is so heavily similar that an uninformed viewer might think that this game was created by Vanillaware themselves.  However, once you have personally grabbed the controller and played through this game, it will be abundantly clear that this is not the same team that made Odin Sphere and pales in comparison.  Still, we can ask ourselves, is the game still good, does it have merit, is it worth playing? It is a clone of a tried and true classic, that's developed by a one and done developer.  Maybe we have a hidden gem or future cult classic on our hands.

Story:

Earth's Dawn is set in the "far distant future" of 2020 where humanity has been invaded by hostile aliens known as the E.B.E..  These monstrosities have ravaged the land, population, and life as we know it to the point that it is near extinction. Despite humanity's best efforts, they find their tactics and weapons are basically useless against this horrible threat. In a last ditch effort, the remaining scientists have discovered how to fuse E.B.E. biomatter with metal to create a superpowered armor that can be fused to a soldier to turn them into an ultimate killing machine that has a change against the alien menace.  These new super soldiers, eye-rollingly dubbed A.N.T.I., set off on their mission to push back the invaders and reclaim Earth for everyone who still remains.  You'll work your way through New York, Wisconsin, Canada, and Alaska as you fight back the hordes of enemies along your way and hopefully win the day.

It's a trite premise that serves as nothing more than a vehicle for the gameplay and setting for the whole experience. This, of course, excludes the sheer idea of going to Wisconsin, a locale I can't recall ever even hearing mentioned in a video game before and wish was explored more in this scenario. Did the developers just draw a straight line from New York to Alaska and realize that it crosses through Wisconsin and decided to include it? I want to know more about this decision because it's one of the more interesting inclusions of this game. As for the rest of the narrative, you're given some minor exposition here and there, but it's very sparse and basic and never goes beyond acting as a combat briefing for the upcoming battle. As you level up and progress you are occasionally given some journal updates that fill in the lore and backstory, but most of this information will already be deduced by the player. If you're in the mood for some deep story telling, character development, and meaningful insight you're just not going to find it here.

Gameplay:

You begin the game by creating your character from a set templates that only serve as cosmetic skins.  After that, you're thrown right into the fray to start hacking and slashing with your new avatar.  Just like in Odin Sphere, gameplay takes place on a 2D plane.  You can double jump, attack, slide, ground pound, shoot, and string together combos. You enter into segmented arenas and after clearing the enemies can move on to the next section as you slowly uncover the map and work towards your objective. There are a few tiny branching paths, but mostly every stage is extremely linear.  As for these objectives, all of the story missions involve fighting your way through an area towards a boss that you will have to defeat. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of main story missions in the game.  The rest of the time you'll be doing side content to upgrade your character, unlock new skills, and just pad out the game.  In between story missions, you're taken to the menu of the game and given a timer until the next story mission will take place.  During this time, you're supposed to tinker around with your character's skills, craft new armor from items you collect during gameplay, upgrade weapons, and take on the copious amount of side missions mentioned before.   These side missions are essential not only because they are required to unlock new skills for your character, but because the game actively makes you do them to run down the clock between main story missions.  Once the clock reaches zero, you're given one minute to finalize upgrading your character and then the game throws you into the next story mission.  These can be somewhat challenging (especially the boss fights in the beginning) and you might fail several of them.  Luckily, the game takes pity on you and kicks you back out to the menu and allows you to grind, complete more side missions, and do whatever you need to without fear of the countdown timer.  It's nice of them to do this, but makes you realize that the timer itself is pointless and is just there to annoy you and artificially add tension.  

As for these side missions, they make up the bulk of the game.  Almost every skill and upgrade you can get in the game is earned by completing them.  They are mostly the same, requiring you to traverse a section of the map you've already seen in the previous story mission and kill a number of enemies.  You'll see the same areas again and again, fight the same handful of enemies over and over, and feel like you're in an eternal loop of grinding.  Some of these missions you literally have to replay 4 times in order to unlock some of the skills you need. There are entire upgrade chains in the menu that will have 3 or 4 blips that say +3 ATK each and each blip will be unlocked by playing the same mission multiple times. It's a mindboggling bad design choice and you can tell the developers just didn't have enough content to make a whole game and had to recycle the same missions over and over. Add onto this, the enemies can be very spongey and take too long to dispatch. You'll spend several minutes just clearing one combat encounter of the same enemies you've seen a million times.  It's very padded and anyone who has played this game is very aware of this and more than willing to let you know (if the internet is a good example).  It almost has the feeling of an MMORPG where you're doing fetch quest after fetch quest while waiting for the next big event to happen.  Not only that, you're graded at the end of the missions and certain skills and abilities are locked behind earning an S ranking on these.  That can lead you to having to grind out these repetitive missions even more. Most of the levels feel exactly the same with the exclusion of the second area that introduces a half-baked and poorly implemented gravity mechanic that allows you to invert your orientation to the ceiling and walls during combat scenarios.  It doesn't really add anything to the game other than scrambling your brain with the flipped controls and placing enemies (and the worst boss in the game) constantly out of your reach. Even if it was poorly done, the game could have benefitted from some more gameplay mechanics to break up the monotony. Still, that being said, I never really found these missions to get that boring as the game has a sort of relaxing mindlessness to it that can be enjoyable.

The combat is fluid enough, but does feel a little clunky quite often.  Enemies never block, but they do tend to evade and will read your attacks and hop out of the way too often. This can get quite annoying as the enemies seem to be reading your moves and you just can't connect with them. Also, you're combos will often have a move in them that causes you to lunge forward or do an aerial dash that will cause your character to shoot too far away from the enemy you're focusing on and force you to have to move back into range. This usually isn't that much of a problem because of the good amount of enemies on the screen.  But, when you're down to only one remaining enemy, it can feel like you're constantly having to reposition yourself as you chase them around the screen.  Enemies will also have a lot of poise and rarely seem to get stunned by your attacks.  This will often lead them to smacking you right when you're in the middle of attacking them in a combo or grabbing you and putting you into a lock.  This leads you to be forced to constantly block or maniacally dash around the screen in hopes of avoiding their attacks. This is in contrast to your character which will often rag-doll, get stun-locked, or be frozen easily from enemy attacks.  You'll be forced to pull out your best guerilla tactics and hit a couple of times and then dash out.  Strike and move, strike and move. It can lead to some tense battles that give the sense of only doing a tiny amount of damage here and there while you're trying your hardest to survive.  This can especially be true of some of the more difficult bosses.  These can be tedious (several of them took a couple of 20+ minute attempts), but they can also be quite fun; it really just depends on your loadout and the boss design.  Sometimes, you'll have a tanky boss while you're using fast and weak weapons; sometimes you'll have an agile boss that you can barely hit with your giant mace.  It can be the luck of the draw on your first attempt. However, you're always given the opportunity to change your tactics on the next try. Of course, if you are like me and over level and grind out all of the skills, you can just mindlessly button mash your way to victory.

As you unlock skills, you're able to create loadouts for the different weapons and styles you chose to play. Skills and upgrades require an available free point in a loadout to equip them.  These points can be earned by gathering crystals that are scattered around the stages and from defeating enemies.  This does add a little bit more on the grindiness factor of the game, but it's never that overwhelming and mostly happens passively as you're playing the game. You're given a good selection of weapons to try out that really serve to change up the gameplay and you'll want to try multiple loadouts and character builds as you find a style that suits you. There are swords, guns, bows, longswords, and shoryukens to assist wiping out the E.B.E. threat and they are all welcome and viable additions.  Of course there are a plethora of each of these different weapon types to upgrade, build, and try out.  Selecting the correct one to build with your limited resources can really make or break an upcoming stage (I'm looking at you, bow that heals you when you reload).  In addition to this, you can imbue the weapons with skills like fire, ice, electricity, vampire, etc. when crafting them. This can give you a real boost, and can pretty much remove all challenge to the game if you play your cards right. At other times, you'll find yourself shooting at a giant armored beast with a pea shooter for half an hour.

Presentation:

Earth's Dawn has a very striking and beautiful presentation... that looks exactly like a Vanillaware game.  All of the backgrounds are stunning and presented in a flowy watercolor style with a lot of parallax scrolling to add dimension.  The characters have a sort of paperdoll/marionette look that is ill proportioned and cartoony but charming. You can really tell that the game was a little too inspired by Odin Sphere.  It's basically bordering on legal action and I'm shocked that they were able to get away with it.  I'm actually curious to know if some of the artists working on this game previously worked for Vanillaware, but there's just not much information out there on OneorEight games. Whatever the case, you can tell that the art direction was a much higher priority that the gameplay during development because the bosses, characters, and enemies all have a really awesome art style that meshes perfectly with the picturesque backgrounds and settings. It is honestly the best part of the game and really does make for some impressive screen shots. Despite this, their best efforts are still not quite as good as Vanillaware's.  Of course, who's would be?

The story is mostly presented in the classic budget focused mode of having still portraits appear on screen while the narrative is given in the form of text at the bottom of the screen.  There is some Japanese voice acting as well as some motion effects added to the portraits to add some pizazz to the presentation, but it still boils down to looking at a picture of a person while you're being told about action going on somewhere else.  This is a HUGE no-no when it comes to storytelling. SHOW ME what is happening, don't have someone tell me about it. You can tell that there were some serious budget issues with this game as all of these cutscenes involve just a handful of pictures that are used over and over again with some slight aftereffects added. 

As for the score, it's pretty epic and well orchestrated.  The style ranges from symphonic, to rock, and all the way to electronic based on where the action is taking place.  It fits the game very well and serves to keep the energy pretty high, but is never memorable nor catchy.  It is great background music that does the job, but could have elevated the game if it had been just a bit better.

Conclusion: 

The critics weren't wrong when this game came out.  It really is a mediocre experience and all of its best features and highlights were taken from the game it's trying to emulate.  The combat, art style, art direction, music, story, characters, gameplay, and almost everything else is taken from Odin Sphere but not done nearly as well.  In my 20 hours with the game, I was having a fun enough time but couldn't help but feel that I could be having more fun playing the game that THIS game is trying to copy. There is just way too little meaningful content to the main story that is severely over-padded with repetitive and banal side quests. 

I guess the main takeaway from this game is that no matter how poorly executed your game is, if you copy from a good enough game it can carry you through.  Just like a terrible band doing a cover of a Beatles' song, you recognize the quality and impact of the original but wish it was done better in this circumstance.  I had planned on fully completing this game and unlocking all of the trophies, and I got pretty close.  The only thing left to do after finishing the final boss was to complete the remainder of the side missions and unlock the remaining skills (also done by finishing the side missions).  However, the game decided to introduce a bunch of post-game content after the credits rolled.  I realized that I was going to have to do 50, count them, 50 side missions to unlock these two final trophies.  There were actually only about 14 new missions, but the game wanted me to do each one 4 times each.  Padded-out... even until the end...

Final Status: Beaten (almost 20 hours... with 17 hours being side missions)

Final Score: 6/10 (OK)

Terraria (PS4) Review

Terraria (PS4) Review

Release Date: 11 November 2014

Date Played: 1 January 2022

Terraria is a sandbox 2D action adventure game.  It fits into the same vein as games like Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and countless others that hopped on that same bandwagon.  You're essentially dropped into the world with little direction and are supposed to explore, chop trees, mine ore, craft, build houses, fight enemies, etc.  It was developed by Re-Logic and is considered to be one of the better and more renowned crafting games of the last decade.  While it does fit into that category, Terraria has much more of a focus on combat and killing large and interesting bosses over building and farming.

The presentation of the game is fantastic and everything is in a 2D side-scrolling view.  The 16-bit inspired graphics and art style are well done and have a ton of charm that I really appreciate.  In addition to this, the music is catchy and doesn't become too irritating while you spend the dozens, if not hundreds, of hours that the game was designed for you to put into it.

The gameplay loop is standard for this type of game.  You chop trees to get wood, make a crafting bench, make weapons and armor, then dig into the ground to explore the mines to get ore to build better armor.  The deeper you go, the more rare minerals you'll find.  All of this is to build up your character enough to take on the copious amounts of bosses found in the game. Thankfully, these boss fights are the most interesting part of whole experience and help it stand out from its peers.

So, we have a cute and colorful game with a tried and true gameplay system.  What's not to love, right?  Well, I'm not going to beat around the bush.  I didn't enjoy this game.  I've attempted to play it 3 times now and I get so bored and exacerbated after a short while that I don't want to continue anymore. It's not the game's fault by any means.  It's just that I don't like this style of game.  I feel the same way about Minecraft and Stardew Valley.  They are fun entertainment tools, but don't really feel like much of a game to me.  You're given a lot of interesting mechanics to go out into the sandbox style environment and make your own fun.  Unfortunately, that isn't something I want to do.  I want to experience a well thought out and carefully constructed game with interesting mechanics and a good narrative.  I don't want software that allows me to create my own experiences and set my own objectives. In these sorts of games, I feel like I'm just doing chores with no real objective to work towards other than completing more and more chores with increasing complexity and difficulty. Even the idea of grinding for countless hours to get gear to go kill a boss doesn't appeal to me either.  Yes, this happens in RPGs all of the time.  But in those cases, you're given characters with backstories, timelines, lore, narrative.  Terraria is sadly lacking on all of those fronts.

Lastly, the control scheme for Terraria on the PS4 is so terrible that it's almost unplayable. Accessing basic commands and menus takes several button inputs.  Switching items, targeting items in the scenery, and even performing combat actions and jumping all feel awkward and clunky. If you dive into the peanut gallery of the internet, you'll soon learn that I'm not alone in my feelings about these controls.  Terraria was designed for play on the PC, and if able, that's where you should play it.

If you like these sorts of games, Terraria is a good one.  It has a great art style and music.  The mining/building mechanics all seem solid, and if you like games where you just spend most of your time exploring and finding things, Terraria will treat you right.  If you're the sort of person who goes into a game like Skyrim and has fun wandering around the map and discovering cool things, you'll enjoy this game as well.  I'm more of a gamer that prefers to just tackle the next quest without any diversions. Terraria wasn't made for me and the poor controls on the PS4 pushed me even further away.

Final Status: Played (3 attempts)

Final Score: 5/10 (Just not for me).

Tanuki Justice (PS4) Review

Tanuki Justice (PS4) Review

Release Date: 16 October 2020

Date Played: 30 December 2021

Introduction:

Tanuki Justice is a charming 8-bit inspired side scrolling action platformer.  The developers, Wonderboy Bob & Storybird Studio, proudly display their inspirations with this cute, fun, and difficult game. You can see, hear, and feel the influences of Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, and even Contra in this throwback to the golden era of gaming when the NES reigned supreme. 

You play as a Tanuki (a Japanese Raccoon) and his sister (in 2 player mode) who have to platform their way through 7 stages while taking out countless anthropomorphic enemies on their quest to save the world. It's a basic story that we've seen a million times and fits in nicely with the old-school feel.  Honestly, you don't need anymore exposition than the brief but well illustrated cut-scene before you're dropped right into the action. Everything is presented in a fantastic feudal Japan art style that really helps the game stand out and gives it a nice little boost to its appeal.

Gameplay:  

Like most, "Nintendo Hard" games from yesteryear, Tanuki Justice gives us easy to learn but difficult to master gameplay.  Present are the one hit deaths, respawning enemies, and tight platforming that drove me into a rage when I was a child.  You're armed only with your double jump and a very short range and weak throwing star. You can fire in all 8 directions and can even lock your shot or character in place with use of the trigger buttons. In addition to this you have a massively destructive magic attack that can be unleashed once the meter is filled. This will usually make quick work of any enemy you come across and will even take a pretty sizable chunk out of the bosses you'll encounter along your way. Filling the meter is as simple as destroying the enemies you come across or by collecting crystals hidden in chests around the level. In addition to these crystals, you'll also find powerups for your throwing star, 1-ups, and shields.  All of these are highly essential and you'll want to grab everything you can find.  The shield will prevent you from taking a hit and basically serves as an extra life.  The throwing star upgrade greatly increases the range and power of your puny base shot and is a necessity for most of the game. Although it doesn't increase your very limited range as much as I would have liked, completing many of the levels without it feels like an almost insurmountable task at times because you won't be able to reach enemies without getting right in their faces. 

As you go through the diverse settings of the games stages that range from bamboo forests, undergrown caverns, graveyards, and even a ninja temple, enemies will come at you from all directions and will sometimes even spawn right in front of you as they jump out of doors at the last second.  Knowing when to move forward or hold back and wait for the opportune moment is key to this game.  Often enemies are placed in a precarious position that will put your skills and reflexes to the test. Sometimes, they pop out of nowhere and basically sucker punch you in the face and cause you to die. A lot of the time you don't have the chance to react to this and just have to know where the enemies are going to be before they get there. This is especially true in the second half of the game where you'll need to play the stages again and again to memorize the enemy patters and carefully learn to route your way through the hazards of bottomless pits, spikes, disappearing platforms, and dozens of lethal enemy types. Yes, this game is just as challenging as those incredibly difficult games from the NES days.  Luckily, the developer takes pity on you and allows you to respawn right where you died until you run out of lives.  If you're forced to continue, you have to start at the beginning of the stage, but it's never that far to go as the levels are action packed but brief.  Also, you're given unlimited continues on Normal and Hard difficulties.  This makes the game beatable as you're allowed to retry each stage as many times as you need until you get it right.  And, by the way, you WILL need to retry the later stages several times for sure. After you finish a stage, it's unlocked in a level select for that difficulty.  This of course allows you to practice each stage to your heart's content. At the end of each stage, you'll face off against one of the fun and well thought out bosses. They all have engaging patterns that you'll have to learn to master them.  While difficult, I never found any of them to be annoying or frustrating and was able to get the kill after only a handful of tries and usually enjoyed my time doing it.

The trophies in the game, however, ARE extremely frustrating, draconian, difficult, and downright impossible. Many of the trophies focus on beating the game in a certain time limit, or without dying, or without killing a certain number of enemies.  I was absolutely shocked to see that more than half of the trophies in the game have a 0.0% completion rate.  As in, NOONE, has EVER done these tasks.  I think it's a little brazen for the developers to think that their game is so unbelievably amazing that they expected the community to basically want to perfect a world record caliber speed run just to unlock them.  

Presentation:

This game is oozing with charm from ever aspect.  The main characters are unbelievably cute in their design and their little furrowed and menacing brows only make them even more adorable.  The same can be said for the dozens of well designed enemy and boss models. All of the stages are bright and colorful and feel very different not only in design but also in art direction.  There are many memorable and striking set pieces that are thrown your way as you work through the game.  I won't spoil these, but they certainly stand out in several of the stages and remind you that you're playing on a current gen console and not something from 1985.  

The music is also quite good and has some catchy tunes to it.  My daughter and her friends were hanging out in my game room while I was playing, and I caught them all humming along to the soundtrack.  If that's not a compliment to the composer, I don't know what would be.  Once again, you can feel a strong influence from Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden.  Perhaps a little TOO strong because I heard little hints of melody taken directly from those games and chord progressions that I know were lifted from some of my favorite stages in those games.  It's not blatant or malicious, but you can tell that some of the hooks were um, borrowed, from the NES greats.  

Conclusion:

Tanuki Justice is exactly what it was developed to be.  For better or worse, it feels like it could have been released in 1989.  You have the very short game length (less than 20 minutes if you're good enough) that is made artificially longer by its extreme difficulty and having to retry levels over and over.  This is made more obvious by having unlimited continues.  You'll soon realize that most stages are only a two or three minutes long.  It's a tough balancing act and I'm not sure the developers could have done any better.  You don't want to pad out your game because you need keep it short and energized like they were back in the day.  But, you don't want to scare off modern gamers by limiting their continues and trying their patience to the point of them quitting. Pleasantly, I think Tanuki Justice successfully walks this tightrope and give the player just enough challenge to make them feel like they're playing a game from that period, but has enough leeway to actually allow them to finish it.  

I can honestly say that if this game had been released on the NES or Sega Master System three decades ago, it would be considered one of the best games on the system and a bonified classic.  It's a fantastic recreation of a game from that time period and can stand toe to toe with them.  Unfortunately, this game wasn't created in 1989 and was released in a time where we're going through a retro themed game renaissance.  Other 8-bit inspired indie games over the last few years have taken the framework of these classic games and evolved and improved them to create something magnificent and groundbreaking.  Some of these games have even won game of the year by beating out AAA multi-million dollar franchises with insane pedigrees.  Tanuki Justice doesn't do that. It doesn't try to break new ground or alter the formula in any way.  It pays homage to the games that inspired it by trying to be exactly like them... and it succeeds.  The only problem with that is that there already so many games just like this and you could just play them instead. I wish it had gone out of its way to bring something new to the table. Personally, I was able to beat it, but didn't have any desire to put more time into it because I felt like I had seen it all before. It made me say to myself, "Man, I should play Ninja Gaiden again."

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10 (Good)