Yes, apparently One Piece Day just happened to be scheduled on August 10th last year, officially this year gonna be on the 22-23 Of August, and so it might seem pretty early to discuss things that in 2 weeks might not even matter or instead be addressed, but since on the 16th the blog goes on hiatus as usual, and i usually reserve/consider August as One Piece Month, i will be rambling a bit anyway.
about One Piece in general. what else?
Continua a leggere “One Piece Day (?) Throwaway Musings”
Turns out the demo for Disgaea Mayhem wasn’t really that misrepresentative.
Yes, the full game IS is better than the demo, but also indicative of this being indeed a cheap project the company really didn’t believe in, one they just kinda slapped the Disgaea name on to ensure it sells some copies, even if it the story fits the zany nature of the NIS series, being about a mercenary tasked by an Overlord princess, Tichelle, to retrieve legendary flan desserts from demons that defected from her army.
Combat isn’t as refined as more recent traditional Warriors title or Dynasty Warriors Origins, but it’s decent, there are some fun weapon movesets, the borrowed mechanics from the Disgaea games help, overall the core gameplay is good enough.. shame there’s really nothing around it, just a handful of overly simple levels that are frankly interchangeable, as they have nothing going on: no bases system, no attempt at any kind of gimmick, nothing.
Just kill very small amount of peons, do it two more times, then reach the level boss area.
It feels like a musou game made by people that never actually played a musou game.
Rinse and repeat 3 times for most of the few story chapters, maybe stopping a bit to grind if underleveled, not that it’ll make the campaign last more than 6 hours, with very few post-game content as well, gated behind way too much grind, and it’s easy to accidentally overlevel yourself, killing the little “balance” it had going on.
Plus frankly the game looks cheap, like a late PS Vita project resurrected and souped up a bit.
Yet, i don’t find Disgaea Mayhem to be THAT bad, it’s “just” disappointing, underwhelming, overly basic (to the point it feels half-baked as a whole), very short and content starved.
So, yeah, NIS hasn’t been too vocal about it, but yes, they are doing basically “Disgaea Musou/Warriors”, just in-house, and it comes out on the 23th, in a couple of weeks, i’ve actually preordered the Limited Edition this time, but i’ve seen the demo pop up, might as well give it a whirl.
And let’s just say i wasn’t impressed… actually i was baffled, but for different reasons that you might think.
The reasons being that this is an AWFUL demo.
Like, it’s become clear NIS has no faith in this game, but a demo like this feels just short of self-sabotage, like they actually want this to fail? What the fuck is the point of even throwing this together?
The demo already befuddles on the first impact because there is no story or cutscenes at all, you’re thrown into an empty little hub with a single Prinny to talk to in order to access the three levels/stages on offer; so already if you wanted Disgaea’s style of comedy you’ll have to check the inventory for the “demo weapons, not for sale” bit in the info boxes.
What the demo does have is three special demo stages, but they sure don’t feel special, they are of slightly rising difficulty, but barely so, and they are so short that i was able to see all the content in the demo in about 15 minutes.
Some demos give away too much, but the one for Disgaea Mayhem is exactly the opposite.
Continua a leggere “Disgaea Mayhem PS5 [DEMO] | FIRST IMPRESSIONS”
Yet more fuel for the bargain bin PS2 bonfire with an arguably even more obscure niche hack n slash title from an even more forgotten ilk, as Bujingai was at least co-developed by Taito and Red Entertaiment, the latter being behind the PS2 Gungrave games as well as Sakura Wars So Long My Love, the Fossil Fighter games, or much of the Record Of Agarest series.
Instead Raging Blades (originally called Raging Bless in Japan) comes from a developer pretty much unknown, Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), whose portfolio mostly consist of this, something called Dream Audition and some racing or idol games that never left Japan, and was distributed by Wanadoo, one of those European publisher that no one remembers but did have a presence back in the day, though i remember them mostly for their logo on PC graphic adventure like the Necronomicon titles, and later a lot of tie-in shovelware… but also the PS2 reboot of an old Tecmo series, Rygar The Legendary Adventure, which i will eventually feature here.
That aside, this is even more distant, because while Bujingai was surprisingly pretty nifty and complex for a 2003 release, Raging Blades also released the same year yet it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, being pretty much a 3D styled take on Golden Axe, its roots in the arcade years of the genre pretty much unfazed by how the genre evolved in the third dimension and especially from Devil May Cry on forward.
It’s so arcade there’s no “Continue” option from the main menu, because you’re expected to beat the story mode in one setting.
Continua a leggere “Raging Blades PS2 [REVIEW] | Arcade Axe”
The first Force Unleashed was good, not original or amazing, but good hack n slash fun, it was.
So a sequel wouldn’t be surprising, given it was the fastest-selling Star Wars videogame at the time, even if the first one actually had a proper ending and a definitive fate for the main character, Star Killer, so how do you continue the story?
Since i’m about to discuss the story of the first game and spoil the ending, i’m gonna have to make it extra CLEAR.
As in.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING, again.
You have been warned.
Continua a leggere “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II X360 [REVIEW] | ♬ ‘Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down ♬”
This is a revised rewrite, but it has been so long since the old review that back then the Sequel Trilogy had just begun, and Disney wasn’t quite drowning people in Star Wars related projects and series up the wazoo, and to be honest while i still don’t consider myself a Star Wars fan… fuck if i know what a “Star Wars fan” actually means nowadays.
Nor i do care to properly find out.
I did like it casually enough to play some SW games like this and the sequel, and – as i said before – i would love a Star Wars Musou, which sadly will never happen, and in general i do like people fighting with lightsabers and magical space powers, i’m not above it, absolutely.
Also, while this isn’t the first hack n slash/beat em up based on the property (i remember the home consoles versions of the Episode III tie-in game being that and mostly well received), it was certainly one made because God Of War became popular, so Lucasarts wanted in, as everybody did.
Namco even resurrect their Splatterhouse series to get some of that violent 3D beat em up action.
Continua a leggere “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed X360 [REVIEW] | Starkilling It”
You think you know the depths of the Playstation 2 library.
You don’t. You just don’t.
If this wasn’t the case, a title like Bujingai: Swormaster would have been covered by gaming Youtubers as a “forgotten gem” to the point it’s not forgotten at all anymore.
And yet, 99 % of you before know never knew there was a PS2 era hack n slash in the vein of Devil May Cry but where you play as sci-fi wuxia Gackt.
Again, the PS2 library is so big we still are finding more obscure titles to showcase.
Personally, i remember seeing this one a lot in bargain bin cases after a while, since it was distributed here by 505 Games/Gamestreeet (figures since they are an Italy based distributor), which back in the early 2000s were famous for mostly peddling ol’ budget games/shovelware by the bucketloads, so that didn’t help, but at least a PAL copy is fairly cheap and easy to find still today.
Can’t say the cover helped because sure as hell the general public wasn’t gonna go “is that Gackt?” after looking at the box art.
But yes, he gave right to the teams to use his likeness for the main character, Lau Wong, a wuxia hero that has to do the usual: sky surf on an ethereal cloud while doing the usual wuxia ballet-combat aerobics and eventually go back to Earth, 100 years after an apocalyptic event wiped out most of the population while giving survivors powers, to rid the planet of a demonic army that has holed up in the asian city of Bujingai.
And since it’s a martial arts inspired game, it just happens the head of the demon army is a former fellow martial arts student turned rival that has gone evil, as you do in these.
Continua a leggere “Bujingai: Swordmaster PS2 [REVIEW] | Wuxia GACKT Action”
As i said in the review of the first Slap Them All, they quickly made a follow up game 2 years later (as in 2022 Mr. Nutz Studio released that awful Joe & Mac port-remake), simply titled Asterix & Obelix: Slap Em All! 2, and while i was planning to review this next year… by coincidence i ended up playing it and finishing it far earlier than planned, so
Sure, that will leave Mission Babylon as the only new Asterix & Obelix game by Microids to review next year, but whatever,
This time around the plot is original, and concerns the theft of an important Roman insigna, the Aquila (literally “Eagle”, a golden eagle insigna), which is blamed on Lutetian friends of the Gaul duo, and so Asterix & Obelix venture to find out who actually stole the Aquila and why, before they execute the entire Lutetian village as retribution, so important is the Aquila in political leverage terms for the Roman Empire than losing it is seen as a great public shame for the reigning emperor.
It’s not a bad plot, it’s fine, and at least it’s not just Ceasar once again throwing a scheme to finally conquer those pesky Gaul villagers.
Continua a leggere “Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! 2 PS4 [REVIEW] | Fist Of The Roman Star: Ceasar’s Rage 2”
Because i’m slowly turning April into the “Asterix & Obelix” month, and due to a new CGI animated film, Asterix & Obelix: The Kingdom Of Nubia, releasing this October, we’re doing more of the Microids published Asterix titles.
Since we did all the titles in the XXL subseries of Asterix & Obelix games, we’re now tackling a retro styled 2D beat em up, the fittingly titled Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All!
The story is based on 5 classic Asterix & Obelix stories, plus an original final act, so if you were hoping for an original story, you aren’t getting that here, but the picks are indeed some of the more recognizable and beloved stories from the comic book series, like Asterix and The Normans, Asterix In Spain and Asterix & Cleopatra.
The game is fuckin gorgeous, to the point i believe they blew their entire budget on the hand-drawn style graphics, as the cutscenes are just cheap character sprites/portraits talking at each other while the portraits just fade in an out, and while the art style it’s loyal to the comic strips, it means there also some sadly fitting “ethnic stereotypes” brought over as is from the decade olds comics, like the poor black guy that is the sightseeing dude on the pirate ship and is routinely knocked over when Asterix & Obelix casually terrorize them when traveling, or the random “asian pirate with nunchuks” mid-tier enemies that might as well have “Mickey Rooney doing yellowface” masks on.
Speaking of the cutscenes, at least they voiced these, can’t say the same for Asterix & Obelix XXXL: The Ram From Hibernia… but in similar fashion to that they cheaped out and didn’t bother to dub it in italian as well, despite the franchise being really popular here still.
Continua a leggere “Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! PS4 [REVIEW] | Rock Em & Sock Em Romans”
For context: i played and completed the original release on Gamecube, previously reviewed it (more than once), but i recently played it from scratch and finished it again via the Gamecube Classics app on Switch 2, so this review is technically a rewrite, but it’s de facto new, almost completely done from scratch and rewritten/improved/revised to reflect my opinions on the game after re-revalution.
HISTORY
Wario needs no introduction, having been Mario’s Nemesis since its debut on Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, and having not only its own peculiar platforming series, but in 2003 it also branched off into a new genre, with the peculiar mini-games compilation of the Wario Ware series, which had just debutted some months prior.
Wario World was also a peculiar case since it was not only the first 3D outing for a series that had been 2D platformers or puzzle games of sorts (including the Super Famicom exclusive Mario & Wario, and his reskin of Bomberman games, Wario Blast), but was also not developed by one of Nintendo’s internal development teams.
It was actually handled by Treasure, a beloved software house known for classics like Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Guardian Heroes, Ikaruga, after their collaboration with Nintendo on Sin & Punishment proved successful, that lead Nintendo R & D 1 wanting to do so again, but this time on a 3D iteration of the Wario series/franchise.
Who would turn down to opportunity to work on a 3D “Mario” game with Nintendo’s blessing, after all?
Definitely not 2000s’ Treasure, which was in a kind of identity crisis, coming off of both Sylpheed The Lost Planet and Stretch Panic/Freak Out/Hippa Linda not being well received (nor selling well either) and them basically having to take on more and more licensed tie-in work, for anything from Tiny Toons to anime series both well known (like the Bleach DS titles and the excellent Astro Boy: Omega Factor) or obscure, like a shonen series called Dragon Driver.
Continua a leggere “Platformation Time Again #7: Wario World NGC/SWITCH2”
Wise Cafe (International) 