Tag Archives: Konami

Contra: Legacy of War (PS) Review

Developer: Konami | Overall: 1/10

You may like Contra, but this is one Contra you have to hate. This is an impossible game to beat without cheats. There are 2 CG movies that have nothing to do with the game, and it has the cheesiest graphics you’ve seen in a while. In Contra: Legacy of War, Frankenstein is the master of the universe, and he talks for at least 5 minutes, and you don’t even know what he says, cause he mumbles like a silly bitch. He also thinks your greatest nightmare is all the bosses you beat in the game. You get to beat all of them again in the same match, somewhere near the end. So that means, you get to beat each boss 3 times.

You can’t even fight Frankenstein! On the last boss, his face is waving around the screen, so you can barely see what’s happening. Did I mention there is an alien named Bubba in it that you can be? When you beat the last boss, which you already beat before, his face goes away and you beat the game.

There’s also one stage that is a planet, and you can walk around the whole planet in less than 10 seconds. When you beat the game, the planet blows up, and on one piece of the planet, there is a paper-cut-out of the guys you can pick on the players select screen.

There is also 2 mini-games that is the worst 2 “arcade” games ever. One of them got blown up by stimpyismyname, so I don’t know how crappy that one is. The other one, is the crappiest version of a mix of Space Invaders/Asteroids/Milipede/Centipede game you’ll ever find!

You go around in a circle on the edge of the screen, and if there is 2 players, you stop when you hit the other guy, going around in the circle. Then you have to go around in a circle with them. It was possibly their mode of space travel, but we doubt it.

In conclusion, this game sucks the dicks of everyone that made this game. And when we say everyone, it is actualy about 10 people. We counted them from the credits. They’re probably mostly women too. Which is why it came out so pussy. Good job, Konami, I salute you for a job well done on making one of the worst games ever and crushing the name “Contra” forever. I hope you’re happy, cause I’m not!

 


From a review of Contra: Legacy of War: “You also get some cheesy 3d glasses with the game. Turn on 3d mode in the game, but on the blue and red glasses, and get ready for a headache. There is some slight depth perception at the expense of all the color, and a flickering screen. Its just a worthless gimmick. There was no point in including it, except for fancy packaging… I mean, who couldn’t pass up 3d glasses!?”

cooooool… in contra legacy of war you get 3d glasses… that must have been why it wasn’t so good…

Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel (PSP) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 9.0/10

Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel (MGS DGN) from Kojima Productions and Konami, is a very unique product for the PSP. Not exactly a game per se, the MGS DGN is a very interesting addition to the Metal Gear Solid library and for PSP owners, a unique way to experience Metal Gear Solid.

In the same vein of The Silent Hill Experience, the MGS DGN’s main feature is the comic adaptation of the Metal Gear Solid story. While there isn’t any voice acting, the comic captures the awesome feeling of Metal Gear Solid’s story perfectly. Practically every event and detail has been included in the adaptation, save the gameplay portions, which are improvised into semi-action scenes with sound effects and action being drawn. The story is changed ever so slightly so that the adapted parts of Metal Gear Solid’s gameplay make sense. The end of the story is also changed from the game, creating a combination of the two possible endings from the original.

The art is absolutely spectacular. It’s very stylistic, and is true to its graphic novel calling card. What’s different about the MGS DGN from The Silent Hill Experience is that it’s interactive. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly that easy to pause the action going on so that you have more time to read the speech bubbles, but an extra mode that is included makes use of the interactivity in the regular story mode. With a press of the Square button at any time, you can stop the comic from playing and “search” the pictures with a set of crosshairs. Once you find something that is highlighted, a “Memory Element” is added to your collection for later use. Memory Elements could be anything from a person to a gun to a scrap of paper in someone’s hand. Anything is fair game for being a Memory Element.

Memory Elements are used in the slightly more complicated “Memory Building Simulation Mode.” The purpose of this mode is to fully understand all the elements of the Metal Gear Solid story and all the connections between characters, events, and things of that sort through the whole series. If you want to get a full understanding of the story, this is the mode to spend most of your time with. To unlock all the connections, however, you’ll have to watch the story mode very closely and make sure you get all the different Memory Elements so that you can use them. Memory connections are made by directing a line coming out of a box towards another box floating in 3D space. It’s a little hard to direct the lines to the next connection, but the whole concept of the mode isn’t hard to make sense of.

The reason I personally liked this title so much is because of the way the graphic novel is presented. I appreciate the way the art looks and how the music and sound effects make me feel and remember the experiences I had when playing Metal Gear Solid. The collecting of Memory Elements allows for more player interaction and gives me a more thorough understanding of the series if I had missed something.

The Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel is a very cool item to have in the PSP’s library. It might not be a traditional Metal Gear Solid game, but Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops should help out in that department. I found the whole product to be very well worth it. The Metal Gear Solid story is a very enthralling experience in comic form, and it would be great to see the other games have the same treatment as the first did.

Silent Hill Experience, The (PSP) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 8.5/10

If you’re looking to get into the Silent Hill series, why not start with an animated comic book? That’s exactly what the Silent Hill Experience is; two hours of digital comic books, music from the games, and a few extra videos. Even with the additional media, the main feature of the title itself is quite obviously the digital comic books, and with good reason.

In basically what can be described as a movie you read with an awesome soundtrack, the comics included on the UMD are very interesting. If you are new to the Silent Hill series, like I am, the comics can seem a little “out there” in terms of understanding what is going on story-wise. After a while, however, you can understand the world Silent Hill creates in itself and what happens to the people that interact with it. The art style is very unique, and if you appreciate that kind of thing, it’s worth the price tag in itself. The drawings hold nothing back in terms of graphicness – you’ll see lots of blood, gore, and everything in between. The colors really make the comics come to life and once you get into it, you feel like you’re actually immersed with what is happening. And obviously being all about horror, Silent Hill can be quite scary in terms of what’s happening rather than you being actually scared.

There are two comics included in The Silent Hill Experience. One was made specifically for this release, “The Hunger,” and the other is named “Silent Hill: Dying Inside.” “Dying Inside” is a comic translated into a digital comic by Konami, and separated into four parts. The way you would watch one of these comics, is simply by selecting which part you wanted to watch from the menu and letting it go from there. The comic panels will fade in, zoom in, zoom out, and fade away into the next panel for you to look at. There is no interactivity with the comics themselves, there’s a limited amount of time for you to read and watch each panel. Altogether, these comics are as long as a feature-length film.

The music that accompanies the comics as they play helps in the immersion of the story as it unfolds. The music changes at just the right moments to help in the immersion of the whole experience. What would have improved the whole thing, would have actually been a featuring of voice-overs to help with the immersion even more.

The comics can also move a bit faster than you might like if you’re not a fast reader – I usually have to Pause the video every time a new speech bubble comes along. As for the other stuff, it’s not too much to get excited about. There are music 20 music tracks from the series, a video interview, and other video content from the Silent Hill games.

The video interface can be a little confusing, as it’s presented in a way in which you’re flying through an abandoned and severely damaged school. Different rooms contain different pieces of content. How you move around almost simulates how a first person view board game would be; you press up and you go in a pre-determined direction. Sometimes you have to figure out exactly which way to go to get to certain pieces of content, sometimes resulting in you accidentally going back the way you came and losing track of where you were before.

The Silent Hill Experience uses the PSP in a unique way by exploiting its multimedia strengths. The Silent Hill Experience is a perfect example of how a UMD Video that is marketed and produced directly for PSP users can do something more than a DVD. Seeing more of this kind of product on the PSP would definitely be cool. All in all, $20 isn’t too shabby for what you get in this package, and fans are sure to enjoy it.

Metal Gear Acid 2 (PSP) Review

Developer: Kojima Productions / Publisher: Konami || Overall: 9.3/10

The strategy genre is one in which I’ve had the opportunity to delve into more as of late. Just the luck of the draw I suppose, but ever since finishing the first Metal Gear Acid, I’ve been excited for more action from the series, and little less than a year it has come with Metal Gear Acid 2 (MGA2). Metal Gear Acid 2 is a vast improvement over its predecessor; a more refined formula of what had been initially introduced with the series.

The gameplay mechanics of MGA2 are essentially the same as those in the original Metal Gear Acid, just with improvements, but these improvements don’t change the basic game. If you’ve played through the first, then MGA2 will feel very familiar. Movement on the map has changed just a little bit; instead of watching an arrow come out of the player to plan a move out thoroughly, the player’s character will actually move in a “real-time” fashion. Other enhancements make basic movements much more streamlined. One thing that might be annoying is that instead of immediately having you chose the direction to face after you move, you have to remember to press the triangle button and then press the X button (as opposed to the circle button, which is the confirm button). The visual interface has also been enhanced to show what moves are available when picking an action. The basic strategies you have to manipulate have stayed relatively the same and are generally in line with the usual strategy game. The speed in which a mission progresses is a major aspect, as it helps to keep the game interesting.

The amount of available cards to acquire has been more than doubled. Approximately 550 cards are in Acid 2’s library, up from the 200 to collect in the first. Obviously a number of new cards had been added, but the main bulk of new cards come from being able to upgrade cards – a new feature that remedies the deterioration of lower-leveled cards through the game’s progression. Having so many cards also makes it a challenge to complete the collection. The concept of “Interference” has also been carried over, and MGA2 puts more stress on using it correctly over than the original had. Interference is the concept of an equipped item influencing a certain stat that another equipped item has. Used effectively, it could make things a little easier. It can also make things a little harder. There are a couple of new types of cards, most significant of which being automatically triggering cards that can help quite a bit during a mission, such as a hit % increase or an attack increase.

The biggest improvement over the first MGA is the sheer amount of opportunities of extra missions to earn extra points and cards and more varied game design. Once you complete an area in Metal Gear Acid 2, you can replay the area in several different ways, including Eliminate, Sneaking, and Special Mission. In Eliminate, you basically just kill all the enemies on the map. Sneaking, you have to get through the level without being detected at all. Special Missions are a lot more like puzzles, making you devise a way to complete an objective within the constraints of the challenge, whether it is allowing only a limited amount of cost to complete the objective, using a pre-made deck of cards, or completing something in one turn. There are special clear bonuses if you get an S rank after completing any story mission or extra mission given in the form of cards, so it is definitely worth your while to do your best in everything you do.

As for the visuals and sound, MGA2 has definitely been enhanced over the first. The biggest being the visual style, the game looks more like a comic book with outlined characters, as well as being vibrantly colored. It’s a nice change from a “regularly” colored game, even if it is funky to see Snake wearing blue shin guards. Sound is used in a better way overall, with most guns sounding unique from each other. What could be seen as a lacking aspect in the sound, however, is the absence of any voice-overs. It’s unfortunate that another game in the series has a lack of a vital aspect to sound in games nowadays. The story is pretty interesting, and completely independent from the first. For much of the game, Snake is dealing with amnesia and not knowing who he is other than a mercenary. Not that the story that is included was a bad choice to use, but I had become personally interested in the way the story of the first MGA could have been continued, but alas, a new story is what is given, and its delivered (yet again) in drawn stills. The inclusion of quite a few more bosses through the game breaks up the monotony of killing regular guards, and definitely solves the biggest qualm I had with the first MGA.

A big extra part of the game is the ability to watch movies in actual 3D with the accompanied Solid Eye plastic-coated cardboard “glasses” that slide over the PSP. As you collect more cards, more movies are available to watch in 3D. The movies to watch are basically every movie from Metal Gear Solid 3. And some movies of extremely hot chicks not usually wearing all that much or getting squirted with water or something like that. The music that plays over those movies made me feel kind of weird, just because all you were basically doing was looking at this girl smiling in the camera seeming like she didn’t really know what to do. I wasn’t too crazy about the movies they put in there, but the 3D was quite effective. The only unfortunate thing is that you can see the pixels of the PSP pretty well, so it looks like you’re actually watching a “bricked” image, if you can understand that.

Metal Gear Acid 2 is an awesome sequel, definitely one of the games that define the PSP for its visual quality, capabilities, and possibility of having add-on things, like the Solid Eye, for specific games. A lot more excitement is to be had with the second Metal Gear Acid, and more bosses integrated into the overall gameplay stresses that point. If you liked the first Metal Gear Acid, you’ll find enjoyment with Metal Gear Acid 2.

Suikoden Tactics (PS2) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 8.9/10

Konami’s Suikoden RPG series has finally gotten its own strategy RPG offshoot, in the form of Suikoden Tactics for the Playstation 2. Rather than comparing Suikoden Tactics to widely known staples of the genre, it would be more appropriate to compare it to another recently released strategy RPG — Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity, from Atlus. If you’re in the market for a new strategy RPG, Suikoden Tactics would be an excellent choice, even on its own merits.

Suikoden Tactics takes a while to set up the story; it takes nearly two hours before you can really start to catch on to what might (or might not) be happening. From what you might be able to gather from the first couple hours (as to not spoil anything later on) is that the story has something to do with a band of travelers trying to find information about Rune Cannons, the main character being named Kyril. The traveler’s interests in Rune Cannons are not explained, but during their search they stumble upon, presumably, a Rune Cannon that changes people into fish-human hybrids. However, the origins of the protagonists and their interests in Rune Cannons becomes a subplot (or takes a backseat, rather) to events and conspiracies revolving around Rune Cannons in general. Even more puzzling is the weird goat girl that never says anything and doesn’t partake in battles, but follows the main character wherever he goes. The beginning stages of the story are fragmented, and take place over a number of in-game years, however, its not all that complicated. The most important point about the story is its ability to keep the interest in playing the game.

Suikoden Tactics takes all that has made strategy RPGs great in the past, and rolled it up into a neat, polished package. Not only that, but it adds on a level of complexity (in the form of elements), forcing you to be more tactical in your approach to each battle. In regards to controls, Suikoden Tactics uses the tried and true command-menu. Unfortunately, after experiencing the “Direct” control scheme implemented in Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity, which sped up battles considerably by making buttons shortcuts to individual commands that would normally be on the command-menu, it makes it seem like Suikoden Tactics is lacking in that department. However, Suikoden Tactics is considerably more complex, and there are aspects of the game that make battles go faster, so it evens out the playing feel in that regard.

As said before, the usual features in a strategy RPG are present. There are the side quests in which you can send a party member to accomplish, side quests that you can actually participate in, the building and maintaining of an army of personality-less allies, and other bits and pieces. But it is the unique aspects of Suikoden Tactics that make the game shine, namely the elements. Elements are your usual magical properties in any RPG like Fire, Earth, Lightning, Water, etc. Each element has its own opposite, no surprises here. Where it gets more complex is that each character has an “affinity” to a certain element. So if a character had a Fire affinity, and they were standing in a square that had the elemental property of Fire, they would get “powered-up” – attack and defense are noticeably higher as well as the prospect of healing after every turn while in the friendly elemental field. Keeping that in mind, it becomes wise to try standing in friendly elemental areas, avoid opposites to your affinity, and manipulate the battlefield to your advantage. Enemies are also able to use elementals in the same way. Besides the elementals, there are other nifty aspects such as switching out party members for fresh troops (allowing you to exploit your whole army in a battle if need be), and mounting party members on animals you find along the way. There are also a number of battle skills that characters can learn that allow you to customize each of them in a way that will be optimal.

There are parts of the battle system that give leeway to speeding up each battle, as well as stepping out of the norm of regular strategy RPGs. There is no use of Action Points, normally seen in strategy RPGs, to dictate each character’s turn. They basically get to move and then act, but if they act before they move, they aren’t allowed to move again (unless they have the specific battle skill to do so). There are also no Magic Points, as the special skills and magic are lumped into a category called Runes; you can use a specific Rune skill a limited amount of times in each battle and the number you’re allowed to use them increases as you level up. If you equip the battle skill on a character to do so, a character can attack more than once during his or her action, speeding up the battle quite a bit compared to what it could be if the battle skill weren’t equipped.

The town and back-end systems aren’t too out of the ordinary. There are five different places in a town that are of interest: the Outfitter, the Blacksmith, the Quest Guild, the Rune Master, and in certain areas a training ground. The Outfitter is the place to buy your equipment and items; armor and hand gear being the most important, they can affect the status of a character. There are also about ten extra slots for each character to hold items or extra equipment as you so desire. At the Blacksmith, you simply upgrade the weapon each character has (there’s no weapon-choosing here, it’s just straightforward upgrading). The Rune Master is the place to go for your special skill and magic needs. When you acquire an orb you have to pay a Rune Master to equip or unequip the Rune Orb. There is also a training ground of sorts every so often where you are able to level up and find treasure. Oddly enough, a permanent death situation is presented in the training levels of the game, while not integrated into the story battles. So, what it basically means is you shouldn’t push the capabilities of your group so far as to have someone in your party die, making them not playable anymore.

Sound and graphics do take a place in the fold as well. Most notable for the sound portion of the game, the voice acting is either a hit or a miss. Many might not like the choice of voice work for the main character, because he comes off as a young adult with the voice of a ten year old, but any fan of the .hack series will recognize Kyril’s voice as Kite’s. You’ll probably be more able to accept the voice of Kyril if you played through the .hack games, like I have. Other voice work is moderate at best, sometimes falling lower than that. Graphics-wise, the game is modest at best. The characters are cel-shaded, and scenery isn’t that striking either. The entire story takes place with in-game animation; CG movies will be admittedly hard to come by, if there are any to speak of. However, we should probably be grateful they took the time to have in-game animations rather than still pictures talking back and forth a la Stella Deus: Gate of Eternity.

As for what is disappointing about the game, it mostly comes in its overall package. While yes, Suikoden Tactics is very recommendable for a strategy RPG, it doesn’t have that extra “oomph” to push it over the edge and make it one of those games you’ll cherish forever. If there were a better story (and to a lesser extent a stronger overall voice cast), the end product would have been better balanced between it and gameplay. Nevertheless, Suikoden Tactics is a refreshing experience for the strategy RPG fan.

Zone Of The Enders: The 2nd Runner (PS2) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 9.5/10

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is the sequel to 2001’s Zone of the Enders. Fans of the original should consider it practice, since ZOE 2 is where the real challenge starts. ZOE 2 has reached new heights of diversity in gameplay compared to the original, and everything (and I mean everything) about the original battle system has been improved. The visuals have also taken a completely different course into the anime/cel shading direction. If there’s one thing to be sure about, almost any fan of the first Zone of the Enders will enjoy its sequel.

If you felt like me when playing the first ZOE, we were kind of left in the dark as to who the enemies really were and what their intents were. Thankfully, a “Previous Story” movie is included on the main menu screen which gives a recap of the whole first game and explains the different plot holes that were left to question. We learn that an evil “army” named BAHRAM, bent on creating all-around destruction, went to the colony where the first game’s hero, Leo, lived to retrieve an orbital frame (which are what the mechs that are in the game are called) named Jehuty. Jehuty would be used to activate a weapon of mass destruction named Aumaan. At the end of the first game, we were given a non-elaborative statement about what Jehuty’s “final” mission would be, which was to go to Mars and self-destruct in Aumaan. So, we were left to wonder what would actually happen to the characters we saw through the first game, as well as what would happen to Jehuty and its AI named ADA.

Many years after the events that happened in Zone of the Enders, the story picks up with a character named Dingo on a Metatron mining mission on one of Jupiter’s moons. Metatron, being the precious energy substance of the future, was very highly valued. While on the mining mission, Dingo finds Jehuty hidden away in a large box on the moon. Unfortunately for Dingo, BAHRAM did as well. Dingo hops into Jehuty and proceeds with kicking the bejeezus out of all the units sent after him. ZOE 2 is a very straightforward game, and progresses more or less like a regular action game. The “world traveling” parts that were present in the first game have been done away with and replaced with cinematic sequences filled with story. But while ZOE 2 loses the “freedom” aspect, it definitely makes up in keeping the challenges diverse.

The primary objective of beating up an endless amount of ambiguously named enemies has been done away with in the transition to the sequel, but there are still plenty of enemies to slaughter. Raptors, Cyclops and Mummies make their way back into the game, but not without friends and some new characteristics. Raptors, while more or less the same as in the first game, are the most common unit you’ll be seeing. The Raptor AI has been immensely improved, and actually poses a challenge at certain times. The Cyclops, which was just a hard-punching version of the Raptor with no long-range attack, has now become a formidable opponent as well. Using some sort of distortion blast for long-range attacks as well as getting an AI upgrade makes the Cyclops not-so generic of an enemy anymore. The Mummy has also had an AI boost, but besides having the usual couple of sub-weapons to use against you, when defeated can sometimes revert into a Raptor and continue fighting. Other enemies making their first appearance in the game are orbital frames such as Spyders (basically mini walking tanks), Leonardo, Mosquitoes, among others. Just about as often as you’ll be fighting against “regular enemies,” you’ll be fighting boss-like enemies. There are so many different boss battles (not to mention they can take a while) included in the game, and they really diversifies the experience as you play. Each boss is extremely unique in how to beat them, almost reminiscent of the way a Metal Gear Solid game treats its bosses.

Nearly all of the sub-weapons from the first game also made the transfer as well as a couple new sub-weapons. Absent sub-weapons that were featured include the Javelin and Bounder, but the Javelin can be seen being used by a Raptor sometimes. New sub-weapons include the Vector Cannon and the ability Zero Shift. The Vector Cannon is a huge cannon that has so much energy it can blow the crap out of battleships many times bigger than Jehuty, but to use it Jehuty’s feet must be on a firm ground. Zero Shift is the ability to travel from one point to another with almost no time spent between traveling. If you can’t grasp the concept, just think of it as teleporting. The new sub-weapons, as well as enhancements to the pre-existing ones, add another layer of gameplay as you’ll have to use sub-weapons intelligently through the game. Many of the sub-weapons now rely on a pressure-sensitive button command, unlike the original ZOE, allowing for more control over your sub-weapons.

While the gameplay experience being extremely revamped is a very important part of what makes ZOE 2 great, the visual aspects also take a very big part. ZOE 2 is easily one of the most visually impressive console games to come out of this generation, let alone for the Playstation 2. The detail used in mech design, environment, and the use of cel shading to give the game an anime feel along with anime cutscenes really gives it a distinct art style. It’s not 100% cel shaded though, it still uses the “realistic” style seen in most games for a majority of what is seen, but the cel shading amplifies the visuals immensely. Music is also very good and fits in exactly as it should be, and even the J-popish theme song the game has fits in. I may not understand the words in the song, but I still feel the emotion they convey…sniff.

While the game only took me eight hours to beat on normal, it is an amazing eight hours at that. After you beat the game, there is a New Game+ sort of thing that allows you to play through the game again with a different version of Jehuty (whether or not you have certain abilities dictates the version, as well as the look). A Versus Mode is included, allowing you to play against a friend or computer using mechs from the game, but until you beat the game once you won’t be able to play with anything but Jehuty. What will take the largest amount of time, though, are the Extra Missions. Throughout the game, you collect items called Ex Missions that allow you to attempt specific challenges, whether they are survival, objective, etc. What it comes down to, is extending the length of the title quite a bit past the ten hours or so you might spend on the single player mode after one go. Also worth mentioning is that there is a level that is basically one huge, epic battle fighting against literally hundreds of orbital frames while being assisted by only a few allies. Needless to say, it’s definitely a weird kind of adrenaline rush to take part in it.

Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is a game that makes me clamor for more ZOE-action. Packed full of high-paced mech action has always been its most appealing aspect, but the story is also another factor in its appeal. ZOE 2 is one of the best games for the Playstation 2, but is unfortunately fairly rare nowadays. If you see the game and it interests you, my advice would be to buy it, you won’t be disappointed. Here’s hoping for a Zone of the Enders 3.

Metal Gear Acid (PSP) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 8.7/10

If you’ve ever thought a Metal Gear game would fail to deliver an amazing experience, shoot yourself now. Metal Gear Ac!d takes a completely different spin on the franchise in what can be best described as a “card-based-strategy-board-game.” Similar to strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, the major difference between this game and the rest of the card-based genre is that Ac!d is not an RPG, as cards (and luck of the draw) dictate every part of the game. Metal Gear Ac!d delivers a truly unique experience, while still including all the major elements from the Metal Gear Solid series its fans have come to know it for, including interesting characters, and an entertaining storyline.

Like most people who heard about the game being card-based when it was first announced by Konami, it was left to question whether the game would catch on as the “normal” Solid games did. For me, it was hard to imagine what the game would actually be like, and whether or not the gameplay would measure up to the Solid series. When I finally loaded the game for the first time, I went in with lackluster hope that this game would be as good as the Solid games, but I kept an open mind about it. Recently becoming a fan of the Solid series, and just finishing Metal Gear Solid 3 about a month ago, I was ready to get into another Metal Gear game; Metal Gear Ac!d exceeded my expectations.

Taking place in the future (the year 2016 to be exact), the game starts with an airplane being hijacked. The person or persons behind the hijacking are not known, nor is their intent. The plane is filled with a muscle relaxant called vecuronium bromide that could be fatal if inhaled in excess. To make matters worse, a major presidential candidate named Senator Hach is aboard the airplane. The hijacker demanded only one thing: the prompt delivery of the mysterious project known as “Pythagoras.” This is where you (Solid Snake) enter. The stage has been set, and Snake is sent to a secret base owned by a corporation in the Moloni Republic, located on Lobito Island. It is here that Snake will try to figure out what exactly “Pythagoras” is, as well as uncover the mystery and past events which occurred on Lobito Island, in which Snake plays a big part. About a quarter of the way into the game, you’ll join up with a female agent named Teliko, who will help Snake along the way, and act as a team together. She is also a big part in the story.

The way the story is delivered, Metal Gear Ac!d seems like it shares events from the Solid games, because there are light references to them. For instance: “I’ve been in worse than this before.” All in all, the story is completely different from any other Metal Gear game, and seems like it could be the beginning of a completely new story arc for Snake, but I wouldn’t reject the idea of Ac!d being another part of the main Metal Gear storyline. However, it seems at times like they were trying to make a new Metal Gear story detached from the main timeline, so one has to wonder. Story is either shown as in-game animations or through the usage of drawn stills. While it was initially a let-down there weren’t any traditional CG cutscenes, the artistic style of the stills is fairly appealing as an alternative, and it helps in creating a different approach for Ac!d in storytelling devices when compared to it’s console brethren.

The actual gameplay itself takes a little bit of getting used to, so it’s good that the first couple stages serve as a tutorial; it helps out tremendously in learning the games basic functions. There are four different types of cards you can use through the game: Weapon, Item, Support, and Character. A card can usually be used in two ways: for the special ability grafted into it, or to move. While most cards have this basic option, there will be a few cards that only allow you only one option.

While the basic idea of how to use the cards is easy to get a hang of, they tossed in a bunch of different card characteristics and the vital feature of the game, “Cost.” Cost, as defined by the game, is the amount of time it takes to do a particular action, and is represented on the cards you can play as a big number in the right corner of the card display. Cost directly affects the order your characters and enemies take their turns in, so the more cost you accumulate during your turn, it’ll take longer for you to have your turn again. While Cost is the only aspect of a card I ever really paid attention to, each card has a characteristic called “Interference.” Interference only matters when you equip things to an equipment slot. The Interference of an equipped card can affect cards equipped next to it, such as the power of a weapon and other fairly unimportant things. I never worried myself with Interference, as I hadn’t directly noticed anything different that happened with Interference. It will take a few stages before being able to fully understand how to use the cards efficiently, but once you get used to actually using the cards, your only problem will be in what order the cards are drawn in.

Packed with nearly 200 unique cards, Metal Gear Ac!d offers lots of options for the cards in your deck. When you start out the game, you are able to place 30 cards in your “deck” (which you can compile through the “Intermission” screens between stages of the game), but as the game continues that number will rise higher and higher, allowing for a more customized deck. If you don’t want to deal with manually customizing your deck, you can have the game create the best deck you can have from the cards you currently have.

There are a couple ways to acquire cards through the game. The primary way you’ll achieve cards is by buying them in 3-card Packs from a deck that contains cards that are name after and unique to prior games in the Metal Gear series. Each pack costs a certain amount of points which are achieved after completing a stage. In total, there are four card packs to choose from, but they’re only available to buy after certain points of the game, and each new one costing more per deck than the one before it. You’re told as to when you’re able to buy packs of cards from new card decks because a commercial-like advertisement will pop in after completing a stage/viewing a story scene. You can also gather a few cards by collecting the Packs that are floating around in-game and earning them as a clear bonus.

Using some “special” cards activates a special cut-scene from the game of the deck was based on. For instance, when you use the Cyborg Ninja card, you will see a cutscene from Metal Gear Solid. During the beginning of the game, you will only see characters from the original Metal Gear Solid (the PSOne version). Not until later in the game do you actually see cutscenes from the PlayStation 2 Metal Gear Solid games. It’s impressive that the PSP can replicate the graphics of the PlayStation 2 so well.

The Metal Gear games have always been know for their unique, over-the-top bosses who are usually require doing things that are out of the ordinary to beat. While there wasn’t a whole group of bosses to fight in Ac!d like in the Solid games, Ac!d only had two bosses to really speak of (excluding the final boss), and only one of them actually stands out from regular gameplay, requiring you to do something completely different. To say the least, the amount of bosses worked into the story is not fulfilling, as much of the game is taken up by regular game play. It would have been nice to see more boss stages where they used the aspect of the cards to create a unique situation. This isn’t the only annoyance either. There are instances early in the game where Snake will stop in the middle of his move in order to show some story. This can leave you screwed without any cards to use so that you can move. Fortunately, the occurrence of these situations stop around one third of the way into the game.

As noted above, there are a few cutscenes of characters from the Solid games, as well as a few from the original Metal Gear games on the NES. However graphically, the game isn’t too shabby, especially for a launch game. Ac!d sports graphics that could be best described as “a smoothed out PSOne game.” When one considers the graphics are coming from a handheld, they’re pretty amazing. As I said before, there are no animated cutscenes, so the only movies you’re going to be seeing are the ones from the character cards. I also mentioned that most of the games story scenes are told through in-game animations and still-drawn pictures. I personally liked the still pictures, but they do give off a feeling that the game was rushed to meet the PSP’s launch date, as there isn’t a lot of variety in the pictures you actually see.

The musical score is nothing less than what should be expected in a Metal Gear game; in other words: great. The music accompanies what is taking place on screen, carrying the mood of the game and the specific events that are unfolding, whether they be on Lobito Island or in the airplane. While the music is great, the fact that there are mostly no voice-overs detracts from the experience. As a whole, there is very little actual voice-work at all. The only time you’re going to hear someone talking is during the “commercials” for the new decks that come out, and one word that a boss says before an attack. David Hayter-enthusiasts (the voice actor who plays Snake) might be disappointed at this fact. Once you get used to having no voice-overs in the game, it won’t be that big of a deal, but again, the game feels more rushed because of it.

Metal Gear Ac!d is an excellent extension of the series, and provides an exciting, new way to play the Metal Gear series. The somewhat experimental use of cards in the game can be make it hard for players to get into right off the bat, if you stick with the game, a rewarding experience will develop, as will a new storyline. Metal Gear Solid enthusiasts will definitely enjoy the game, but may find it hard to adapt; it isn’t part of the normal stealth-action genre Metal Gear Solid helped to define. Hardcore fans of the series will find more differences between Solid and Ac!d, but in the end will likely find the game to be worthwhile.

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PS2) Review

Developer/Publisher: Konami || Overall: 7.6/10

The scene opens up with a tavern. A man with a patch over his eye and a pony tail walks into the noisy building from the cold night with a shorter companion by his side. The companion, shrouded in a cloak and with her face hidden simply follows the man. Across the way from the entrance of the tavern, a red-haired adventurer, named Adol, is sitting down with a friend of his. The man with the patch over his eye goes over to Adol, and asks him to accompany him on an exploration around the world. Just then, two soldiers come in, looking for the “red-haired Adol” wanting to arrest him! I don’t want to give away the crappiness of the introduction of the story to Ys: Ark of the Napishtim, so I’ll fast forward to my summary of the opening part of the story; the beginning of the story of Ys: Ark of the Napishtim is trash.

It’s not often that I exclaim obscenities when trying to understand what is trying to be conveyed, but it seems like the beginning of the story was tossed together as an afterthought. The beginning movie is pretty much the only movie the game has for the most part, and it’s badly voice acted. Though there were some very nice graphics exhibited, I counted about three instances of fan service, in which the underwear of the annoying-peppy-blonde-girl character that has some sort of crush (I’m guessing) on Adol is shown. They really know how to pack that kind of thing in. Had I rented the game, the beginning movie alone would make me seriously contemplate whether or not I should return it sooner than I had intended. However, what really saves this game from getting a horrible score is the game-play, and the story later on in the game actually helps it, as well (but after being in the gutter from the beginning, there’s nowhere to go but up, and the bad taste of a poorly set up story always lingers).

I would have to say what the main point of the game would be that it tries to pull off an “old-school” approach to gaming. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim seeks to accomplish this by having relatively simple controls, as well as old-style (but not completely crappy-looking) graphics, a silent main character, and the story itself just being set in a fantasy world (more specifically, the world of Ys, where all the games in the series has taken place). However, because of this “old-school” approach encased in the game, there are many enhancements over the games from back in the day. In Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, every single word displayed as dialogue from a character has a voice-over and rightly so. Every character, even the unimportant characters in a town you find in a back alley will have a voiced dialogue. The voice acting isn’t half bad, and everyone talks except for Adol himself. You’re just supposed to assume what he says by the one-sided conversations people have with him. However, there are a few instances (I think about ten times) where it says Adol “explains to (character) everything that has happened so far.” So, you’ll just have to assume that Adol tells them every single little part of the journey you had just been on, down to how many slime creatures you killed on the way over to see them. The only downfall with the voice acting is that there are a couple of very annoying characters (such as Professor Raba who talks in an over-exaggeratingly old-man’s voice), and that you can tell that there were only a few voice actors doing the voices for all the different characters.

At various times throughout the story you will meet characters (like Professor Raba) whom have met Adol in the past or have known him through his “legend” or whatever it is. I don’t even know what it is, because it made no sense to me when they talked about “when we were at the Tower of Whatshisface” or “you may not recognize me now since I’ve grown into a beautiful woman” and many other instances of back-story that are never actually explained. It was only until I researched the game a little bit online that I found out that this is the sixth game in the series. So it makes some sense as to why it came up repeatedly about people, places and events that seem to be completely random after knowing this fact. Even though it isn’t very important to the story of THIS game, it would have been nice to actually understand what they were talking about.

Story faults aside, the actual game that is inside Ys: The Ark of Napishtim is interesting to say the least. The main feature of the battle system is that there are three different elemental swords (wind, fire, and electricity). It’s up to you to use the swords to your liking, constantly “upgrading” them by collecting enough stones called “Emelas” (or Emel) so that you can use each sword’s special ability more often, or acquire the unique skill attached to the sword. Even though having three elemental swords implies (to me, at least) that there would be enemies that are immune to one sword but not another (forcing you to use the right sword to kill them), you will find this to not be the case for the most part. For how much the game relies on these three swords, it comes out to being which sword you fancy using the most. There are times where you can notice an increase in damage from one sword over another for a particular enemy, but all-in-all the swords were not used to create much of a type of strategy for playing the game. If it weren’t for the story actually requiring there be three swords, it would have been better to just have one sword with a bunch of different abilities. Other kinds of items in the backend system add to the game-play as well.

Unlike most RPGs, there aren’t hundreds of things to collect, rather just a few accessories, pieces of armor, items, event tools, and other such things that are somewhat rare. It gets to the point that it almost influences you to really look for as many items as you can and buy all the items you can. There are a lot of unique accessories to collect throughout the game that will make a big impact on the game itself, such as an accessory that will increase your HP by 50% or another that will increase your attack and defense a little bit. There are also EXP, Emel, and money enhancers so that you can milk out the highest amount of things from every enemy you beat. While you only start out with one accessory holder, you can find more throughout the dungeons, up to a total of five slots for accessories.

Like I said earlier, the whole game itself is very simple and the learning curve isn’t that long at all, and you’ll be able to master the fighting aspect of the game in no time, since the only button you really press is “Square.” Sometimes you press the “Circle” button to use a magic attack associated with the sword you’re using, but this is basically all that you do to fight. The “Square” button is also used to talk to townspeople and investigate treasure chests.

Although the game is pretty easy to learn and get into (playing-wise), there are a couple of annoyances here and there. A minor annoyance is that when you’re in the field or a dungeon, there is no on-screen map to help you find where you are in reference to the place you actually are at currently. So if you’re in a dark cave that is pretty much a maze, you might end up going in a circle or not remember how to get back to a particular part of the dungeon you had been to before but died in. However, the most annoying thing about the game is the bosses.

In all my years of playing video games, I have never seen such cheap, stupid bosses that literally make me throw my hands into the air and say “how do I beat this stupid freakin’ boss?” I understand that boss battles are an important part of any game, but these bosses are, for the most part, so out of place and so over the top in terms of what they can do to kill you that it’s practically amazing that I even beat some of them. Just to tell you what kinds of bosses you have to deal with, you fight a wall. You fight a wall with big, long, skinny, rock arms and a face that can launch flowers that blow up and shoot a large energy beam from its mouth, while swinging around the arms and slamming them on the ground so that rocks can fall from the sky to fall on top of you. If that’s not crazy enough for you, how about a big frog that can roll up into a bowling ball, crap out slime that makes you slide around, as well as use its tongue as a spiked-ball mace? Oh wait, I forgot to tell you that the frog has STEALTH CAMOUFLAGE – it can seemingly disappear! Even if you have the greatest skills in the world at playing this game, you will not beat any boss if you’re not at the right level. A general rule about boss battles is if you haven’t beat a boss after fifteen tries, level up at least five or ten levels, and you’ll see that the boss is all of a sudden a lot easier than they had been before. However, regardless of whether you’re even at the right level, it may take a couple of deaths to get a hang of what the boss actually does. You really can’t expect the things they pull out of the air when it comes to the boss’s abilities. Just when you think you figure out a boss, it surprises you with a new ability it hadn’t used the first time you faced it.

Regardless of all that has been said about the game, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim is a game that really grows on you. One may be displeased by the out-of-the-ordinary old-style graphics incorporated in the game or even the weird set-up for an underwhelming story full of references to past games in the series, but for those who suck it up and go on to actually try and complete the game, you’ll find the game to actually be fun, and actually get caught up in the story a bit. Being a title that is priced less than a “premium” title definitely may influence some people to pick up the game, especially if they are fans of the series (whom haven’t had a Ys game brought to North America since the Super Nintendo days). Even though the game doesn’t take very long to finish, you may end up spending around 20-25 hours on the game as a whole. For those that actually venture far enough as to beat the game, there are a few extras included in the game, which affect game play, audio, visuals, and other things that can be activated by entering the cheat code before playing a new game. In the end, however, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim may only appeal to fans of the series.