Review: The Longest Journey

I love me some point and click action, so when a game like The Longest Journey drunkenly stumbles itself into my life, I can't help but want to love it. Not in a way two drunk uni students would in the middle of the uni bar or two trashy bogans would in the middle of whatever pub they happen to be in; more in a way where we're both in my bedroom as we gently caress each other before we make love. In short, The Longest Journey offers naught but excellence in most any given field of not only basic game design, but also in how we truly play video games. For a lot of people, stories are either an arbitrary add-on to justify why we do what we doing in games or can add a layer of depth to a game... for a lot of people, video game stories can be seen as complete shit when taken on their own terms and it's a viewpoint I tend to agree on. Planescape: Torment, Red Dead Redemption and the Mass Effect trilogy may have great stories, but Final Fantasy games have the sort of story that'd bore readers to tears and only really work in context of being a video game. The Longest Journey is the kind of game where the story has more than enough depth to justify its existence, could easily work well in the form of a book and best of all, the setting and the gameplay compliments it to a point where the game flows at a natural pace, swallowing you into the world portrayed in the game. Many games claim to do this kind of thing, but very few actually succeed in truly immersing you into their worlds.

But what is this game actually about? It's about a normal everyday girl named April Ryan, an art student at the Venice Academy Of Visual Arts in the Venice district of Newport City. She is plagued by nightmares involving dragons and black vortexes - among other things – that take place within a world much more colorful than her own. The thing is however, the dreams are real enough to be real as you learn throughout the game that not only are there two parallel worlds, but that April has the power to shift between the worlds. The thing is that she doesn't realize it until she meets a guy named Cortez who reveals to her that there are two worlds and that she can shift between them. The thing is that Newport City is a part of an industrialist world full of gritty landscapes known as Stark. The thing is that outside of some flying cars, this is about as realistic of a portrayal of the future as it gets as while it seems not a whole lot has changed between 1999 and 2209, it just feels rather different given the more corporate landscape. The other world is Arcadia, a world full of whimsy and wonder. Both worlds are full of chatty people as, especially in the beginning of the game, people can and will talk your head off, although unlike a Metal Gear Solid game, the writing comes across as natural and with some genuinely funny lines (along with enough swear words to make Samuel L Jackson blush, though not quite enough references to sex and drugs to ban this in Australia), it never really impedes on the game's progress – if anything, it adds more personality and depth to the game.

The idea is to restore the balance between the two worlds, but throughout the journey, you'll watch April grow and truly develop into a truly amazing character. Her interactions with the worlds – including people she knows, people she doesn't know and each object that she can interact with – allows you to feel for April's character as her dialogue is rather witty and can elicit some chuckles. But where her character works oh so well is in her development. She starts off as a rather plain Jane (albiet one with a good sense of humor) who ran from home to chase her dreams in Venice... by working at a cafe, doing an art class at a school, finds herself annoyed by her best friend and life in a small room, and finds solace in small talk with her landlady while being ignorant of her powers; the world of Arcadia deeply intrigues her as it's vastly different from her own, almost dreamlike in appearance. It's like what she would paint, only it's real. Eventually, she meets a man named Cortez, who tells her about her powers. Over the course of the game, she'll find herself more confident with her powers as she has to restore the balance between the two worlds. Even thirteen years after release, April is still one of the deepest characters in the realm of video games and experiencing her journey is – as much as I hate to use the following term, I feel like it more than applies here – unlike many, if any that you've experienced before, both in the concept and the quality of the writing.

But good writing cannot succeed without some masterful voice acting, so here's some good news - the voice acting is fantastic. It excels where it needs to excel, and that's in April's voice. Goddamn, talk about fantastic voice acting – every breath of every syllable of every word from Sarah Hamilton brings April to life as her voice conveys just the right emotions for the situation at hand. Whether she conveys the humor at a fine tone or distraught at just the right amount without it being hammy, there's no doubt that you'll be more than willing to pay attention to everything she says. Same with a lot of the other voice actors. Sure, they're not quite as good, but they still do a fine job of bringing their respective characters to life and their interactions with April are certainly entertaining to listen to, especially in tandem with the excellent writing on display. If anything resembling a flaw exists, it's that it's rather obvious that multiple characters have the same voice actor, and even then, there are only so many voices out there that some are bound to overlap. So really, the voice acting is fantastic.

The music is just as good. It's not exactly melodic in the sense that you'll be humming it well after playing the game, but it's more melodic in the sense that enhances the emotion conveyed in each and every scene, or it provides the player with the appropriate ambience while sitting in the background somewhere. Stark's music tends to be more classical and feels like you're exploring a cave while Arcadia's music has more flutes and sounds more fantastical than anything else. The music during certain scenes tends to have chanting choirs to build up an epic atmosphere – and why not? The scenes usually depict big events like crossing over into another world or some other huge event. The choir does a fine job of making these scenes dramatic enough to feel significant without going overboard, which is something I can appreciate when games nowadays can hardly, if at all, get that right.

Speaking of the scenes, the graphics... to put it simply, it succeeds more in the mood that's produced rather than raw power. Mind you, they looked good by the standards of its time, but by 2013 standards, it's clear that they haven't aged too well. It's not because they put 3D models on top of 2D backdrops; it's the 3D itself. In particular, the in game 3D models are a tad on the “blech” side of the fence as they tend to look like they're lacking a few polygons, looking all blocky and whatnot, and the animations tend to be indescribably lame. The cutscene graphics scream late 90s CGI as they look more like claymation models than computer generated models. But then you look at the designs of the worlds and their inhabitants, take a deep breath and realize that The Longest Journey has a hell of a look to it. From ugly, grimy looking ghettos to cheery looking villages ripped right out of a Tolkein novel (or some other fantasy adventure novel), the way that everything is constructed manages to suck you right into the experience. The colors, the designs, everything – it all looks as you would expect their respective worlds to look like based on whatever's established by the characters and the music. It's the kind of game that other games wishing to be more then mere play things should aspire to be – ambient. Not just shallow eye candy.

To compliment the overall package is the gameplay – being a point and click game, it's more about interactivity. Whether you're observing objects, putting objects into your inventory for later or talking to people, there's plenty of stuff to interact with. As with any good point and click game, you're given a lot of incentive to interact with everything you can as you can find clues to the puzzles that you'll encounter throughout your journey. Plus... why not get immersed into the worlds presented in this game? The cursor will change its shape depending on what it's highlighting, whether it's broken to signify that you can'd do anything with it or a certain shade of color to signify whether you can simply walk or run there, exit to another screen, interact with an object or use an object that you've just picked up. To help people out a bit, when you've picked up an object, if it flashes when you're highlighting something with it, it can interact with that.

The puzzles are generally what you'd expect from this type of game where you'll either use items in your inventory or interact with objects around you to operate a mechanism or cause an event to happen that'll allow you to proceed. Whether you'll need to search for an item you've missed or combine some items in your inventory together to make a new one depends on what the puzzle needs. There are some puzzles with bizarre solutions, but unlike games with outright ass-backwards solutions like The Whispered World, you'll be able to find the solution if you think a little outside the box. On the whole though, it's not quite as hard as you'd expect from this genre. Besides the cursor highlighting what you can and can't interact with, Oh, and advice to newcomers – pay attention to what's being said, because you can find some helpful clues from their dialogue if an item or a piece of scenery doesn't clue you in as to what you ought to do next. If necessary, you can look up conversations (among other things like saving and loading files, settings, FMV scenes you've already viewed and her thoughts on what's been going on in the game) in her diary.

The best part about the puzzles is how they're integrated into the game. Each logic puzzle, each inventory puzzle, each puzzle that contains both – they flow incredibly well with the rest of the game. They're all based on their location – whether it's a room in Stark or a portion of somewhere in Arcadia, if there's a puzzle, it fits within the context of that location and whatever characters and/or objects just so happen to be there, especially since puzzles are either triggered by interacting with certain items or whenever an event happens. To put it simply, Stark relies on cold, hard logic as it's a science fiction world, and Arcadia's puzzles require more creative logic as it's something of an abstract fantasy world. Understanding these simple rules will allow you to understand what is necessary in order to solve the puzzle. Due to being more story driven than your usual point and click game, The Longest Journey's puzzles are hardly a challenge, especially when compared to some of the brain busting riddles you'll find in Myst and King's Quest games. But given their implementation in the game and its story driven nature, it's more than forgivable.

That's what drives The Longest Journey well and above the rest of its contemporaries – ambience. Every action, every interaction, every piece of scenery, every note of the music, every vocal chord; it all conglomerates into an experience that makes it stand above the rest of its competition. Clearly, the story was the star of the game, but everything this game offers placate themselves to help it further stand out. It's through a culmination of everything that's integrated into the game that it becomes an ultimately captivating experience second to none and sits atop the throne as one of the best games ever made. There's really not much more to say other than this – buy it and experience it. You won't regret it.

9.5/10 (Fucking Excellent)

Review: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Platinum Games and Kojima Productions working together on a Metal Gear game? If you're the kind of person who digs anything and everything campy and crazy, this would pulsate your penis into a diamond carving machine. I mean holy shit, fun and exciting gameplay with some over the top set pieces to go along with an exposition heavy story full of crazy plot twists? Sign me up! Sure, it took a long time and the only reason Platinum Games was even involved was because Kojima had some issues and needed somebody to essentially redo it for him and Shinji Mikami was more than happy to help out, but it did eventually come and with everything at their disposal, I'm sure they've developed a fantastic game, especially since it's based on...

...Raiden? You mean the guy from Metal Gear Solid 2 that people hated because he wasn't Solid Snake? Who wound up becoming a cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid 4 and got people loving him and even wanting games based on him because he was doing some sick Matrix shit? Interesting – and really, that's a word I'd use to describe my experience with this game. Raiden is able to slice up robots, slow down time to cut them into tiny little pieces and harvest their spines for health (otherwise known as Zandatsu), and given that there are a good amount of enemies and bosses to take down, it makes for some frantic action. There are so many instances where the phrase “holy shit” is uttered to a point where my voice is hoarse and not just gravelly. 

This game's story is... pretty self aware of what the Metal Gear series generally does – introduce a basic concept relevant to the themes of war and morality, plop a bunch of characters into the mix with more exposition than necessary and keep things interesting via some crazy plot twists. Four years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, Raiden and some operatives from PMC Maverick Securities are out on a mission in Africa and all is well until he and his team are attacked by Desperado, a rival PMC that basically amount to warmongers. After a swordsman known as Samuel Rodrigues reduces Raiden's cybernetic armor to pieces, he's given an upgrade by the Doktor. From there, Raiden has to take down Desperado, there's some shit about him and his past of being a child soldier that changes his character piece by piece as the game progresses, Desperado has a Metal Gear, Samuel Rodrigues is the rival character and a bunch of ethnic stereotypes communicate with Raiden occasionally via the codec – it's certainly not as self indulgent as the Metal Gear Solid games because, for the most part, the cutscene lengths range between two and five minutes as opposed to five and twenty minutes, but it's still as crazy as you'd expect, especially given Raiden's transformation into the psychopathic “Jack The Ripper”.

The codec's main use is to fill the player in on plot details while adding in some funny dialogue exchanges every now and again. But when it comes to the cutscenes, it's the same song and dance that we've had with the main series – there's a lot of dialogue, but for the most part, it just seems to drone on and on about war economics and the history and other details about boss characters. It's funny - Revengeance is a fast game when you play it, but it slows down to a crawl when cutscenes pop up. I'll give it to Platinum Games for inserting their blend of over the top goofiness by inserting a bunch of moments where Raiden fucks shit up in such a flashy manner that you can't help but stare in awe, ending with some kid going “go ninja, go ninja, go”. Really, the story works if you sit back and take it as actually thinking about it will only serve to give you brain haemorrhage; most of the plot twists are either flimsier than a PS3 controller or about as ridiculous as you'd expect from the boys and girls over at Platinum, only the dialogue feels more like narration than actual dialogue at times. Just sitting back and revelling in the absurdity of it all is the only way you'll enjoy this game's story, and even then, it doesn't make up for the fact that it basically interrupts your game for extended periods of time to deliver some sort of anti war message to you.

Revengeance is all about carving up robots in a way that makes Raiden look like a stark raving badass. You're given the usual light and heavy attacks as well as a sliding kick to launch enemies in the air so you can cut them up from below or aerial style. There are a fair amount of combos at your disposal using combinations of these commands and  While it has a fast and furious feel, surprisingly, the style of play that's recommended to ensure survival is more defensive than you'd expect it to be. Why? Well, there's a parry system where if you hit the light attack button just as you're about to get hit and push the left stick in the same direction as where the attacker is, you can send their attack back and then slice them up. There are two different timings to get down – either a fair bit before the attack hits, or just as the attack hits. If it's the latter, you'll have the option to slow down time by entering Blade Mode as the screen shows a blue overlay on its edges and then you'll seriously carve them up and then harvest their cores in order to heal yourself up. In other words, the idea is to soak in the flow of the enemies' attack patterns and use it against them. Like any good game, the enemies get harder to not only counter but to even fight as it progresses as they'll be faster, stronger and even trickier with their attack patterns, meaning that you'll really need to get the timing down as you'll sometimes find yourself stepping forward and attacking rather than parrying at times.

Stealth kills and citizen saving add a bit more to the gameplay. There aren't heaps of citizens to save, but if you can perform just the right combinations to kill their captors, you will be handsomely rewarded. As for stealth kills, they'll earn you bigger rewards than straight up kills do. Whether you're in a box, slowly creeping up behind them or have the aerial advantage, giving them the shaft without them knowing feels pretty damn satisfying. Who says you couldn't integrate stealth into this game, Kojima? Someone's a bit out of touch. At the same time, presenting it as an option rather than forcing it upon the player is the better way to go in a game like this. So many times when you play a fun game and then you're slapped into a forced stealth situation that just isn't even that well designed or good even. At least the decision to make stealth optional with maybe a bigger reward makes sense. Yes, it's very tempting to want what would essentially be Mark Of The Ninja in 3D that's set into the future, but I don't know, not having the high velocity combat after a taste of it, especially after the scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4 involving Raiden, would just be lame.

Unfortunately, it gives rise to one of Revengeance's biggest issues – the camera. It has a tendency to either zoom in too closely because it's up against an object or a wall, or go all over the place. Either way, it'll get annoying during combat when you're trying to see what you're trying to do. It can drive you insane when you're fighting the fast enemies and faster bosses, and god forbid you lock onto enemies as once you change targets, there's a good chance that the camera will spaz out by spinning around and even changing angles altogether. Before you know it, the next enemy whoops your ass because you couldn't parry it – you pressed the left stick in a direction that wasn't quite where the attack was coming from because the camera swivelled elsewhere. Then you get knocked in the air, get caught in explosions, get knocked into corners, get out of corners and exit Blade Mode, and the camera just acts unruly for about a few seconds. Given that this game mixes in a weird blend of fast paced defensive play, a camera that spazzes out or has things obstruct Game Overthinker sized portions of the screen is the last thing you'd want.

But when the camera isn't dicking you over, the game is so fast and furious that you forget that there are other problems, like how most of the sub weapons like rocket launchers and grenades are slow and tend to be purely situational rather than a backup plan in combat; how you can't switch between main weapons on the fly; or how the second half seems to be rushed in comparison to the first half (for reference, the first half's chapters last between 35 and 60 minutes; you're lucky if any chapter in the second half lasts any longer than 20 minutes.. except the final boss). The only other big flaw that I could mention is that despite all of the foreshadowing and other such plot elements that'd say otherwise, the final boss comes the fuck out of nowhere and, cheapness aside (oh boy, one hit kill attacks, my favorite – oh, and it takes forever to beat? Sweet!), is such an underwhelming bore in comparison to everything else beforehand that when the credits roll, you're expecting the real final boss to appear and satisfy the deep, cavernous recesses of your no-no places, only to be disappointed by the fact that... well shit, that [i]was[/i] the final boss. I had no big issues with the second half being shorter than the first half as it still contained exactly what kicked ass about the first half – loads of enemies to fight, a robust combat engine and that sense of speed, that sense of excitement that comes from slicing and dicing enemies while harvesting their robotic organs for sustenance. The game was so much fun to play through that most of the flaws didn't do anything, but then the final boss comes, winds up being a lame fight and has you contemplating everything that this game does wrong. Fuck this shit!

It's a crying shame because the other bosses - ranging from fellow swordsmen to other mid sized cyborgs to giant war machines - are fantastic! Camera woes aside, these fights all have a higher sense of scale than enemy encounters. It's not just in the fact that you'll find yourself fighting bosses the size of skyscrapers, but also in the fact that bosses your size require sharper reflexes and cleverer usage of the features at your disposal. One thing that really stands out is the diversity of each boss – each one requires a different set of strategies. I mean, it could boil down to utilizing the parry and dodge abilities when necessary, using combo attacks when they're vulnerable, getting into a series of quick time events when prompted and then either weakening or finishing them off in Blade Mode, but not every boss utilizes quick time events and the timing for parrying and dodging varies between fights. Each use of Blade Mode also results in different things depending on the boss you're fighting – you'll either cut off parts of one boss, knock the katana out of another's hand and, during a set of quick time events, cut off the armor and eventually the entire boss. Really, each of these culminate into some damn good fights with plenty of over the top acrobatics and excellent usage of Blade Mode while keeping you on your toes.

Your reward is typically a lot of BP that can be used to upgrade Raiden's health and defenses or a weapon's power (how much you get depends on how quickly and badly you beat the boss up while getting hit as little as possible), but a handful of bosses give you a weapon as a reward. Then it dawns onto you – while Revengeance is about 5 to 8 hours long, replaying the game is necessary in order to experience the full package. It's hard, if not downright impossible to fully upgrade Raiden, and I doubt you'll be getting S ranks your first time through. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that throughout each chapter, you're graded on your performance during each enemy group and boss encounter, as well as on the whole. To get an S rank, you'll need to kill every enemy that appears as quickly as possible without getting hurt while chaining together long combos, carving up enemies into as many little pieces as you can and utilizing Zandatsu as much as you can (whether you rip off individual or multiple spines at once), and to acquire an S rank for the entire chapter, you need to S rank every single combat section. The perfectionist in you will want to S rank the entire game, probably by playing the game on the unlockable Revengeance difficulty – which is hard as fuck but really fucking satisfying once you complete it – but if you're content with just beating the game once, well, no shit you'll complain it's too short and then wind up missing the point like every other person on the internet who either only played it once or hasn't actually played it. Sure, the second half could've stood to be a tad longer, but other than that, the game shouldn't need to be much if any longer than it currently is.

Topping it off is a solid framerate. Revengeance stays fast and furious not just because of its combat scenarios, but also because it almost never lags and the animations are smoother than a freshly sanded piece of wood. Those moments when you go into blade mode and time slows down around you also feels smooth, and yet it also feels like you're going at the speed of sound while you cut robots to pieces. It's touches like these that make you feel like you're the badass hero in an action movie, and that's what an action game ought to do. It's especially effective during the quick time event sequences found throughout the game. On the cosmetic front, the game looks fairly good. You have generic bloom flavored city, warehouses, big buildings and sewer environments that are at least very detailed, offset by the excellently designed character models. Understandably, it takes place in a future that was wrought with war four years prior, but at the same time, when the best part about the environment is being able to enter Blade Mode and cut parts of it up, that's not exactly a good sign. Could be the washed out colors doing me in, though. Who knows? What is known, however, is that the characters have plenty of detail to them and seem to be significantly more vibrant and better on the eyes.

The sound design is a mixed bag of sorts. The voice acting ranges from serviceable to kind of good to flat out comical, especially Raiden. He goes from sounding normal, to occasionally sounding like his old whiny self, and then to sounding like the offspring of Skeletor and Christian Bale's Batman. His normal voice is actually pretty good and allows you to believe that he's in control, but then he has that “gruff” voice – it's meant to symbolize his descent into madness or some shit, but it sounds so over the top that it actually works against itself. It's like when you drink too much beer and then wonder where your pants have gone and then wonder where you are right now. The others who ham it up actually do a fantastic job of having you believe that it's a sillier game than you'd expect from the Metal Gear series, so it's not that being silly with your voice is bad; it's just there are limits, that's all. If there's one thing that's give the game that extra oomph, it's the music. Ranging from techno to rock, the music manages to kick your ass until shit comes out of your ears. It manages to pump you up through some energetic beats and fast rhythms, and a nice touch is that each of the boss songs have lyrics that are relevant to them while having the vocal delivery to keep up with the music. No, not death metal growls or anything, they're still clean, but the point is, it fits the boss to a tee and the atmosphere to the pixels that make up the letter.

I'm at odds with Revengeance - on one hand, the game is fun as shit to play through thanks to some robust combat mechanics, rocking music and over the top cinematics, and there's a fair amount of replay value to be found with the unlockable harder difficulty levels on top of the ranking and upgrade systems. On the other hand, the story sucks, the final boss sucks and the second half feels rushed in comparison to the first half, as if Platinum wanted to finish development as quickly as possible and didn't want it to essentially turn it into Duke Nukem Forever or Final Fantasy XV. There's just too much working against Revengeance to consider it a great game, though for what it does right, it most certainly comes recommended.

7/10 (Good)

Review: Super House Of Dead Ninjas

Super House Of Dead Ninjas is a fast and furious game, kids. No cutscenes, no interrupting tutorials and best of all, no bullshit. It gives you a quick run down of the controls, which you can reconfigure in the main menu anyway (especially helpful if you use a controller, which is recommended for better control... I mean, unless you've only ever played retro games on a keyboard and can't legally buy alcohol in Australia), and then you'll need to use what you learned in five seconds to cut up enemies on your way down the 350 floor tower. There is a story found in the comic book that can be accessed in the main menu... something about a legendary one armed ninja that descended down THE TOWER and found treasure beyond ones' wildest dreams, only to fall victim to the darkness within. That darkness is known as the demon Abarghus, and with whispers around it circulating around the village, the kunoichi Nintai Ryoko goes through the tower in search of answers. The comic itself also details the default control scheme and it looks pretty cool, making it worth a glance over, but the real meat is in the game itself.

Seriously, I haven't had this much fun with a retraux game in quite some time... well, okay, there was Cave Story+ that I played fairly recently, but other than that, these kinds of games tend to come off as lazy, boring and just really fucking lame. It's like “why play these hollow imitations when you can play the originals” - for every Mega Man 9 and Cave Story, there are lots of mediocre wannabe retro games that may bring you back to the past without actually providing any good fun gameplay. Super House Of Dead Ninjas, which came out in February of 2013, is a damn fun game that'll kick your ass until shit comes out of your ears, and like the stubborn mule you are, you'll keep coming back. Well actually, what'll keep you coming back are the various upgrades and different weapons that you'll acquire by doing various things like killing bosses or killing a boss with just the katana you start with, among plenty of other things. You'll either unlock more melee weapons, ranged weapons, explosives, spells, collectibles (x-ray specs to reveal the contents of boxes and enemies, smart bombs to destroy everything on screen, infinite ammo and a bunch of other helpful things) and stats (health, time, projectiles, explosives and spells) depending on what you do during each run through the tower.

The game itself revolves around you going through each floor, making sure to stay alive. You can either slice their heads off (and for good measure, keep slicing at the head) up close or from afar, blow them up using various explosives or use a variety of spells to make things easier on yourself if your other weapons can't do much. One cool thing you can do is, when you hold down while in the air, either perform a downward stab or a spinning slash to kill enemies easier. These attacks do double the damage but are risky because it's possible to undershoot your attack and get raped. In fact, getting raped is what will happen to you when you first play this. The first hundred floors won't seem too bad – enemies just bumbling about or running like they have propellers up their asses are what you have to contend with, maybe with some ranged attackers to keep you on your toes.

That much probably sounds easier than the middle school slut, but then you get to floor 250 and have to contend with your first boss. Now, the boss you fight depends on how much health you have. Having more than half of your health will have you fight a boss while having less will give you a different boss. Either way, getting a hold on these bosses can be a tad tricky as one will run across the floor, climb up a wall and either jump from wall to wall or just lunge onto the ground; or it'll jump around and occasionally fire a bomb at you that'll explode and damage you. This is also where you may want to make sure you have a grip on the controls as while Nintai can move fast, her jumping and even double jumping is fairly low and sometimes, the super jump won't even charge, which is a real bitch when you fight a certain boss that outright fucking requires it (oh, unless dying is what you enjoy doing). Oh, things get more interesting as you descend down the tower as there'll be more relentless enemies, some of which can only be destroyed via spells and explosives. The level design itself throws more spikes at you and bomb headed enemies, as well as enemies that throw small white bombs at you are a bit more common, meaning you'll probably get blown up...

...and then you fight the one armed ninja and find yourself in a handicap match against Vin Diesel and Brock Samson. What makes the fight hard isn't necessarily his attacking patterns, but when you can hit him. Hint – you can only hit him when he flashes orange, which is before he attacks and lasts about 2 seconds. Expect to die a number of times trying to get the timing down. Oh, and he has two phases. This one has a million hit points and a seemingly unavoidable attack until you learn how to make it avoidable and then learn how to hit him. You finally beat the boss and then get told “lol play on the hard difficulty to get the true ending”, because if you play this on normal, that's the end of the ride. Normal mode is essentially training wheels mode. Now, while I'd be quick to say that you're a pussy for playing on the easy mode, hard mode gets rid of continues so if you lose all of your health, that's an automatic game over – at least on normal, you're given 3 continues, but then you can't actually finish the game. The thing is however, you need to get the feel for it before you can be confident enough to get through the hard mode. From there, it dawns onto you that in order to truly beat the game, you need to unlock a combination of weapons that you can fuck about with and see what you get the best feel for. Maybe you'll be fine with the default weapons, maybe you need different weapons; either way, you need to play around with the different combinations that you have at your disposal, sometimes go out of your way to do some things to unlock other weapons (and on the select screen before you play the game, it'll tell you how to unlock extra stuff).

In other words, this game can be tricky dicky. Getting the timing down for the downward slash can be hard and the cost for failure is the loss of a bit of health. Enemies tend to be placed in ways that can dick you over if you rush your way through the tower and given that you generally kill enemies with one or two hits plus the short floors, you'll be quick to rush through. The time limit can also aid in you rushing through as you have at least half a minute before you need to find the nearest clock collectible, lest you lose health by getting hit by the reaper. But if you can take a couple of seconds to look at the next floor, you can plan and execute, or just use the downward slash and pray for the best as it, way more often than not, kills whatever enemy it touches. In other circumstances, the downward slash would be a game breaking kill fuck everything move, but given that only one or maybe two regular attacks are all that's necessary to kill an enemy, the downward slash requires you to cover a bit of distance and the ranged attacks and explosives have their own means of being balanced (ranged attacks are either slow or weak while explosives can take time to explode and require a lot of prediction), the downward slash is far from it. Oh and against bosses, unless it ensures a kill, it's basically suicide because you'll more than likely get hit either after it deals damage or before you even touch it. Another seemingly game breaking mechanic is the rage mode – you have a meter that'll fill up a bit after you kill an enemy, but it empties out unless you kill more enemies. If you kill a bunch of enemies in a small amount of time, you'll enter rage mode, which will make you invincible and stronger until the meter empties. Hey, that's another thing that makes this game fast paced! The reasons it doesn't break the game are that enemies die in so few hits anyway that the invincibility is the only real bonus you get, and you won't be using it against the bosses.

Speaking of bosses, while they have simplistic movements, they're good enough to give you hell if you don't beat them quickly enough or figure out how to beat them. Oh, you think the first boss is easy on paper? Cool – now let's talk about in execution. As I've already mentioned, you have a slash, a downward slash, a ranged weapon, an explosive and a magic attack at your disposal. You've been taught how to execute them in the first couple of floors. Now's definitely the time to put that to good use as-- oh you just got killed by the bomb toting jitterbug demon. Not so easy now, huh? Kind of. As per retro game design rules, experimentation is a necessity in figuring out the best way to kill a boss, but on the whole, most of the bosses aren't all that exciting and after a while, they generally come across as a distraction or a mild annoyance rather than a genuinely threatening guardian of the tower, unless the super jump doesn't fucking work (I make a point of mentioning this as often as I can because this can dick you over when you need it at times). Doubly so if you use the upgraded boomerang as it can travel a great distance and it comes back to you. Generally speaking, this game doesn't bullshit the player and that's what I love about it – I love the fast paced action, I love the different combinations of equipment and spells can either make things harder or easier, and I especially love how deceptively well designed everything is. Hell, despite my bitching, the bosses aren't terrible; it's just that the idea is to play this over and over again to unlock everything and the rest of the tower is semi-randomized, so fighting the bosses again and again gets pretty boring. Except the one armed ninja. He's quite the hardass.

It's funny that when the game loads up, it shows off a Super Nintendo box because if anything, it looks and sounds more like a Sega Genesis game. In terms of audio quality, it's not like it's a bad thing or anything, but with graphics, well, let's just say that somewhat washed out colors aren't everybody's thing. While Nintai and the bosses are brighter than the sun and some bosses coming out looking like a gay pride banner, everything else has a bit of dullness in their schemes. It at least helps Nintai and the bosses stand out, and really, besides the fluid animations, there actually isn't that much to the graphics. The explosions are a basic orange cloud looking thing, the enemies are either ninjas, guys wearing big bronze armor, guy in cloaks wearing crow masks or some sort of monster – the designs are good and like I said, the animations are fluid, but not much really stands out as great or anything. The graphics are good, no doubt about it, but that's about it.

When it comes to sound design, it's technically good, but it's not quite there. The music sounds suited more towards an espionage mission rather than a mission where heads must be rolled or reduced to ash. There are some beats in there, but overall, it's a bit too subdued for what it's trying to be. Besides, it gets drown out by the purposefully low quality sound effects anyway. The main menu theme inspires more heart pumping action than the stage themes anyway as it has a harsh drum beat, is moderately paced and doesn't sit comfortably in the background. The boss theme is fucking good – it, too, is moderately paced, but what sells the song is that it's got the feeling of tension in its composition. It's at a lower register and the rhythm has the same few chords playing again and again to motivate you to kick some ass and take some names.

Games like this don't come to us every day, folks. Super House Of Dead Ninjas might appear to be your typical retraux shitfest, like some hairy libertarians wanting to “pay tribute” to Slayer/Exodus/Kreator by trying way too hard to be them. But underneath the surface lies a game that's more fun than popping bubble wrap. It's not perfect by any means – not with those fucking bosses – but for the most part, it does everything it can to remain fresh with each and every playthrough via unlockables you can experiment with and a semi-randomized tower design. Whether you have a quick run before bed/going out or you go through multiple times because you're too stubborn to accept defeat, this game manages to accommodate towards your lifestyle as long as you have something resembling reflexes. So this is probably not for arthritic grandmas and slow witted people.

9/10 (Fucking Awesome)

Review: Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Mirror Of Fate

The reboot of the Castlevania series, Lords Of Shadow, was met with mixed reception – people enjoyed it for its refreshing take on the Castlevania series while people whinged about it for being a reboot, being too unoriginal and/or – and this is classic – not being a real Castlevania game. Really, I thought that this was about as close to being a true Castlevania game as it got, and by true, I mean more like the NES/SNES Castlevanias than being Symphony Of The Night. However, Mercury Stream thought that people wanted Symphony Of The Night with Lords Of Shadows' combat engine, because hey, it's on a Nintendo handheld and by law, it better be like Symphony Of The Night! Well, too bad that, more often than not, it just doesn't quite work as well in their favor as they would like it to. It's not so much about striking a middle ground between 2D and 3D – I mean, there are a couple of instances where that sticks out in a bad way – but it's more about the design choices in general. Really, this could've been a great game, but it feels like Mercury Stream didn't quite capitalize on much, if anything that they had at their disposal here.

Before you play Mirror Of Fate, you're basically required to play through Lords Of Shadow on the PS3 or 360 because its story revolves around the plot twist at the end of Lords Of Shadow. Yes, I'm aware that the beginning more than fills you in, but really, everybody should play through Lords Of Shadow. It might not have the best puzzles or beast taming mechanics, but the combat, the bosses and the story are all fantastic, and since they're the focal points of the game, then have at it! Besides, other than filling you in on the story of the previous game, this game barely has any real story. Basically, it boils down to Gabriel Belmont setting up the scene, which then boils down to Trevor/Simon Belmont needing to take down Dracula. Seriously? I get that this is a sidestory that takes place between Lords Of Shadow and its eventual sequel, but a little more oomph wouldn't hurt. There was plenty in Lords Of Shadow and it was a compelling narrative because of that; this is more like Mirror's Edge and Dishonored where there is fuck all to it, except some shit about the Mirror Of Fate and souls and really, I just lost interest in the story. None of the characters are particularly interesting and the story is just boring. Compounding this are unskippable cutscenes. No, fuck you, this is 2013, not 2003; this shit is inexcusable.

Mirror Of Fate is just weird. It wants to play like the 2D Castlevania games, but it has the feel of the 3D Castlevania games. It wants to be like the Metroidvania games in that there's a huge castle to explore, but given that you're playing as three different characters at three different time periods, some downsizing had to be done. As a result, it hardly feels like you're actually exploring the castle; instead, it feels more like you're a gerbil in a linear maze with a few small nooks to give the illusion of open endedness. A lot of the time when you're presented with a seemingly impassable obstacle, you're usually required to get a new item that you'll find at some point in the parts of the castle that you can explore. Even then, you'll only ever really find HP and MP upgrades, sub weapon ammo and experience points you can use to purchase new attacks. You can also acquire experience points from defeating enemies, but more on enemies in a sec – a lot of the time, it feels more like a superfluous detail than a legitimate design choice.

It wants to be like the Metroidvania games but it, more or less, has the linearity of the first Castlevania game on the NES, but yet it has lots of backtracking like a Metroidvania game... it feels like they couldn't quite think of a way to create an ingeniously designed set of castles so they just went “fuck it” and did the first thing that came to mind. “Exploring” this castle feels like a chore, like it would've been better suited as a set of levels rather than one big level that changes when the game decides to arbitrarily change your character every few hours. Before anybody cries “it's on a handheld”, I'll just say that Aria Of Sorrow, which is my second favorite Metroidvania game for what it's worth, was on the fucking Game Boy Advance and it had a much better designed castle than this hunk of shit! In fact, it was a better game on the whole, and that's because it understood basic game design principles, something Mirror Of Fate didn't quite get.

While we're talking about design, it's pretty cool that you can use your whip to swing on chandeliers, although it seems more like a cool afterthought than anything else as it doesn't require anything more than basic timing. In fact, platforming as a whole seems more like an afterthought than an integral design choice. I've played Kirby games with more demanding platforming! But hey, at least it's a cool afterthought, which is more than I can say for the sub weapons and special powers each character can possess – not even going to bother listing them because you'll either only ever use them to get through parts of the castle that you couldn't get through by other means or you'll use them like once before resorting to using the whip. Well, I guess I'd be willing to use Trevor's super speed more to make the one or two backtracking sequences less boring if it lasted for more than like 5 steps. Nope, it's just there to jump gaps, but you'll probably forget because you never really use these abilities. Oh... did I mention that you don't use each character for longer than maybe 3 or 4 hours? Don't get too used to them, you hear? Probably explains why they fight with the combat cross (or the whip as I kept on calling it) eerily similar to one another...

The combat is such a mixed bag, that it almost hurts the game in a way. For one thing, combat happens at pre-determined points. Instead of fighting enemies along the path, you'll get into what would appear to be an arena setting and fight a group or so of enemies. Another thing is that defense oriented gameplay is somewhat encouraged. Much like Revengeance and the original Lords Of Shadow for that matter, Mirror Of Fate isn't above letting the enemies pummel you into dust if you don't either dodge or parry. Thankfully, parrying is as simple as pressing block at the right time and then allowing you to let it rip while dodging has you press left or right while holding the block button. It can be easy to get cornered though, so watch your footing.. or rolling in this case. However, I did say that a defensive style of play is only somewhat encouraged; unless you notice that you're about to get hit, you can pretty much mash the X and Y buttons, only blocking or dodging before you get hit. Unfortunately, it becomes a bit too clear that this doesn't quite work on a 2D scale, mainly because when I look at the 3D graphics and watch the dance of life that is the combat, I can't help but want to dodge anywhere but towards and away from them. Not just that, but between getting cornered at times and just plain being locked on a 2D scale fighting mobs of enemies that magically appear as opposed to fighting enemies as I travel through the castle, fighting enemies is just... boring.

Look at it this way - in Aria Of Sorrow, you fight enemies that roam around the castle – whether they're shuffling about or flying from the sides, there's always something to fight, even if you don't expect it. There was always this whiff of tension to it, like you never know what's behind that door. But there was always a chance to escape or bypass the enemy on your way to the next room... maybe even the save room to heal up and then take that big bad living doll down while Medusa Heads come from the sides. But in Mirror Of Fate, you fight mobs of enemies and you have to kill them. Oh don't worry, there's a checkpoint/autosave system in place, and it's one of the most liberal checkpoint systems I've experienced in a while – for fucks sake, during boss battles, if you die, you simply respawn and they don't regain much if any health! However, none of the enemies or bosses really do anything interesting to warrant giving a shit, and even though you learn new combos via levelling up... there's hardly a need to use them.

Oh, and this game employs quick time events. Not that a single one is used for cinematic purposes or anything; they're just slammed onto the plate because hey, it's the cool thing to put into games. I especially love the ones encouraging the player to mash a button, because the 3DS can take it, right? It's not like these buttons are small and somewhat fragile, right? Oh wait... this drives me insane because the bosses are easily the highlight of this game. They hit hard, which encourages you to dodge and parry if you can while you seek the best time to wail on them. But then two things happen. One, liberal checkpoints that make the fights easier than they should be; and two, it takes like a million hits to beat any given boss, making each fight feel more like a test of your patience than a test of skill. Hey, you want to know how to make these fights challenging while making them fun? Get rid of the mid-fight checkpoints, lower their HP, and get rid of the quick time events! Just thinking out loud here obviously...

But hey, at least this game looks and sounds... alright, at least. In fact, Mirror Of Fate looks amazing on the 3DS, with some high quality textures and highly detailed models seriously showing off the 3DS's graphical capabilities. Needless to say, I was awestruck by the amount of detail put into everything, especially the animations. I didn't say “watch the dance of life that is the combat” for no reason; the animations are very, very smooth and detailed, which goes well with the defensive gameplay that Mirror Of Fate encourages. Not to mention, it's just plain mesmerising  like the Batman Arkham games and Sleeping Dogs, the animations manage to really suck you in. The scenery seems more like a castle featured in the Lord Of The Rings series rather than a piece of gothic architecture like in the older games – I mean, there are parts that are reminiscent of the old gothic atmosphere, but then there are parts that are plain and, despite the staggering amount of detail that surprisingly doesn't result in lag (unlike a certain other game I know of, right Kingdom Hearts DDD), it just isn't as immersing as it could've been. It's a shame – our characters' clothes and a lot of the monster designs are what you'd expect in old vampire slaying movies with maybe a few ripped from Lord Of The Rings (sorry, but Lords Of Shadow did make me think of Lord Of The Rings with its setting at first and that impression carries on here). Ah well.

The soundtrack at least has that gothic vibe, but it's more in the background than anything else. I guess it could've worked as the best haunting soundtracks are ones that lay in the background, ready to pounce – ask Akira Yamaoka! But where Silent Hill had masterful sound design, Mirror Of Fate simply has competent sound design. Well, okay, that's not entirely fair nor even true as the voice acting was good. Most of the vocal deliveries were convincing enough to work with a couple of scenes showcasing great voice acting, and some characters who could've been better. Simon Belmont is a standout amongst the crowd as he has an impassionate voice that suits his fiery demeanour  Most everybody else sounds good, but nothing noteworthy. It's a bit of a shame nothing else stands out because usually, Castlevania soundtracks – from the gothic yet upbeat NES games to the jazzier variants found in Castlevania 4, to even the Lord Of The Rings inspired Lords Of Shadow, there were tracks that stood out as fantastic, especially that one song in Castlevania 2 – you know the one I'm talking about. Here? Umm... it... doesn't blow every dick in a five mile radius...

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow – Mirror Of Fate is Mercury Stream saying “you losers wanted old school Castlevania, well here you go – enjoy your shitty old Nintendo game you fat geeks!” - you know the type of attitude; that grizzled look on their face, with the somewhat gravelly tone in their voice or that loud, hoarse voice depending on how pissed they are with their fanbase, all the while thinking to themselves “those idiots will learn to love my style if I blend it into the style that they love”. It's odd however, because even if I was somebody who can't accept change and think Symphony Of The Night is what Castlevania should be, Mirror Of Fate just doesn't get it right as it's pretty linear despite giving the illusion of open endedness, like most SNES/PS1 JRPGs. As somebody who did enjoy Lords Of Shadow while also quick to consider making love to the Sorrow duo, I found Mirror Of Fate to be a rather... underwhelming mishmash of the styles and an overall mediocre game.

5/10 (Average)

Review: Cave Story+

I'd love to go up to Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya and get him to teach independent video game developers how to make a fucking video game, because Cave Story is a damn fine game that blows the competition out of the water before it even existed. Before Braid's success lead indie developers to believe that pretentiousness was synonymous with quality, Cave Story lead us to believe that beneath the smoke and mirrors that began to form with AAA games lied independently developed games with genuine creativity, ingenuity and a sense of wonder that came with games in the past. A passage through an immersing game world full of things that'll kill you and things that drive the adventure further, Cave Story relishes in old school tropes without essentially being an NES game on your PS3. Instead, it's a retro game with modern touches that actually matter, becoming an experience of its own that still has yet to be topped.

A good video game is one that doesn't waste your time with unnecessary bullshit. If it did, it'd be Assassin's Creed 3, which is a bad game. But Cave Story plops you into a cave with no recollection of how you wound up on what would eventually be revealed to be a floating island. No overly long exposition or anything - BAM, onto the island, you wake up, you explore a bit and you find out from some friendly natives that you have to stop the evil Doctor from taking over the world. It sounds like the setup for the plot of most 90s JRPGs. But like a good 90s JRPG, the story opens up as you progress through the game. There's more to the Doctor's plan than simple global domination which gets revealed towards the end of the game. The characters you meet along the way are all connected in a way that leads to these chain of events. Tragic events will happen, but like any good hero, you'll right the wrongs that have been committed. Even though this game is like five hours long, there's plenty of depth to be found in the story and it becomes a rather enamouring tale of stopping a power obsessed lunatic from achieving his evil desires. For reference, it does in five hours what a typical post-Super Nintendo Final Fantasy game tries to do in 30-40 hours. I sometimes forget that this is an indie game because it's just trying to tell me a story instead of shovelling pseudo-philosophy down my throat and expecting me to believe that it's art. Cave Story has a damn fine story with brilliant pacing to let nailbiting dilemmas and big events happen with enough breathing room between them to let them sink in, all within its five hour length.

It's downright insulting how retro inspired games are either fucking I Wanna Be The Guy trial and error bullshit or Braid “man this is soooo deep” crap, because games like Cave Story gets shit fucking right! It takes Metroid, makes it a bit more linear without it being obvious that it's more linear (sounds like Pixel's been playing some Half Life on the side), and makes backtracking not feel like a chore! Shit, even the best Metroid games can't do that! But I'm getting ahead of myself - Cave Story is a sidescrolling adventure game where you run, jump and shoot your way through a game world that expands as you find items that allow you to access areas that you couldn't before, unless a story event plops you elsewhere. Imagine that, a sidescrolling platformer that's driven by the plot. You'll be revisiting some areas at times, but you'll find that things have changed; enemies have gotten stronger and the terrain is a bit different. You may even fight a boss that wasn't there before! Now, it might not sound like much, but given that it's rooted in Metroid-like gameplay, backtracking is sometimes a necessity and as such, it's nice to see some change so that it doesn't get monotonous. That's not to say that all backtracking is like this – there's one part where you have to go back and forth from getting an item and using it on something a little while away, and then going back to get the item and using it on something on the other side of the map. That part was tedious. But that's the exception to the rule – you'll often have to revisit the central village area but it usually contains the next part of the plot. Towards the end, you'll revisit an earlier area, but it'll be massacred and full of stronger enemies. That about covers how much backtracking you'll do in this game.

The levels aren't massive and a fair amount of the game is pretty linear, but it doesn't stop you from exploring the different nooks and crannies to find health and ammo upgrades. It also doesn't stop the game from doing a splendid job of giving off the illusion of open level designs. It's done to a tasteful degree, so there's no wasted space and doesn't feel like an empty sandbox, and since there are some goodies, it rewards players for being curious. Hell, at some point in the game, depending on what direction you take in a level, you'll either have a shot of getting the good ending, or will have to content yourself with the not so good ending. Deceptively conning the player into believing that this will be a linear game with big worlds, only to drop a bombshell of not only multiple paths but also multiple endings can either be clever game design or bad game design. Thankfully, Pixel is a fucking genius and managed to integrate this in a way that feels natural. Obviously, some areas will be more linear than others; obviously, some areas are going to have branching paths and obviously, some areas will be inaccessible if you don't do certain things right. What that means is that replaying the game is encouraged in order to get the other ending. Getting it is a bit cryptic, but if this game has taught you anything at that point, it's that curiosity is rewarded with neat stuff.

It's not all about exploring as you'll be required to fend for yourself. Whether it's against the wildlife that attacks you first or the forces of evil, you'll have to shoot them down. You're given a decent variety of guns – you start off with a blaster and along the way, you'll find a bubble launcher, rocket launcher, machine gun, throwing swords and the motherfucking BFG. Each of these weapons have their uses, like how the blaster is good for your first weapon but your machine gun is just generally better as it has rapid fire for quick and easy damage. The throwing swords deal a fair bit of damage if it lands on an enemy, although you can only throw them at a medium distance. As a plus, it repeatedly deals damage for a couple of seconds. The rocket launcher deals a good amount of damage, although it doesn't have much ammo. As you kill enemies, you can collect experience points and upgrade your weapons, which will make them even stronger, although getting hit – because we can't have blood or anything – will result in you losing some experience points, so... don't get hit. More often than not, it's not too hard as it's generally easy to read enemies' and bosses' patterns after a while, though some of the bosses are just pricks and will annihilate you unless you have a specific weapon upgraded, but since it has a good chance of hitting you, well, all that needs to be said is good luck. At the very least, the difficulty scales at an incremental rate (except for this one boss about three fifths into the game), they get craftier and more damaging with their attacks. At the same time, the fights can get rather exhilarating as they attack you quickly, methodically and with the intent of deflowering your sphincter, especially on the hard difficulty mode where you can't obtain any health upgrades. Due to this, the boss fights are fantastic and wind up being the most exciting parts of the game, especially the final boss guantlet.

This game gives you the option to either play it with the old school graphics from the original freeware game, or with tweaked up visuals. While the old school graphics look good, the retuned graphics are definitely better looking as the character sprites are given more details and the shading is applied more smoothly. In fact, the newer version looks smoother in general. The old school graphics look good when you consider that Pixel was originally going for that 8 bit but not quite 8 bit look as there's a fair bit of shading on each of the sprites and backgrounds/foregrounds, but given the choice between blocky graphics and not so blocky graphics, choose the latter. Yes, the former may sound the most like it'd give you feelings of nostalgia, but the latter, like I said, is just smoother around the edges and gives everything more detail, which should also cater towards feelings of nostalgia. In general, Cave Story's graphics is an example of fantastic pixel art in motion.

For the most part, it's the same thing with the music – you can either listen to the old school soundtrack, a remixed version and an original soundtrack. The old school soundtrack goes well with the old school graphics, but if you're playing with the touched up graphics, the remixed soundtrack is more suitable because the remixed soundtrack, while it has some chiptune parts, is given a more modern touch by having mostly uncompressed instruments like painos, bass guitar and drums. Either way, the songs are short-ish but they manage to really get you going. During gameplay, it's peppy, it gets you pumped up and makes you want to fuck shit up, and it only amplifies for the boss themes! Then the music that plays during the cutscenes are moodier, with some ominous stuff to foreshadow a terrible event and more sinister stuff for the reveals of evil plans. Oh and yeah there's this new soundtrack but it eats dick. Instead of being catchy and upbeat, it's generic and does about fuck all for the game. Plus it doesn't really suit the look of the game; feels more like it's meant for a game that's not meant to be retro than one that celebrates retro tropes. Did I mention it blows ass? Yeah, head for the remixed old school soundtrack immediately.

In a scene I often feel lethargic about, Cave Story is a damn fine example of getting it right. It's a fun experience full of upbeat tunes to keep you going while you keep on coming back for the intriguing story. That's the kind of game I ask for – one that doesn't fuck about with bullshit that doesn't work. Most games in general can't seem to get the idea that you ought to show and not tell, to eventually reveal the story as the game progresses, to make proceedings either as enjoyable or as riveting as possible, and finally, to make sure everything is delivered in a way that keeps things fresh. This is even more evident with the indie scene – some games get it right like Limbo, Shank and Deathspank, but most other indie games really bugger that up by being made for psuedo-intellectuals and wind up boring the everloving crap out of me. Sure, it might not sound right, but that's because modern day mediocrity and quasi intellectual bullshit has sprayed me with rum over the years... so yeah, support good games by buying a copy of Cave Story and playing it.

9/10 (Fucking Excellent)

Review: The Cave

The Cave is an interesting game. On the surface, it appears to be a platformer with point and click style puzzles and witty dialogue that will keep you amused, entertained and even capture the very essence of your soul. It even offers multiple characters, of which you can use three of in order to offer some co-op puzzles between them and even some unique puzzles here and there for each individual character. But there comes a point where you're going “that's it”, mainly because it never feels like there's enough content in the game to go along with its large aspirations. It feels like a game that's finished, but without the polish and creative measures necessary to call it a full experience. A five course meal where each entree course lessens in taste is the best way to describe it...

It'd be better to explain it in full, beginning with the best part of the game – the story. Deep within the recesses of the cave lies riches beyond ones' wildest dreams. Enter our eight “heroes” (well, seven actually as two of them are twins you control at the same time), who wish to explore this cave in order to fulfil their deepest desires... which basically amounts to money. Now, you might be thinking “but we're playing as a monk, a time traveller and a chivalrous knight, maybe they're just going to use the money for the greater good”. Well, if by greater good, you mean for their selfish desires, you'd be absolutely right. Adding onto this is the disembodied voice of the cave itself. It provides snarky, humorous commentary over specific moments, often having to do with these characters and their not so good intentions. While the narration itself is funny, the situations of which the characters are placed under in order to progress through the cave, like grave robbing or altering with time itself, makes for even funnier situations, then you add the narration and it just makes for some rather humorous moments. So where it lacks in detail, it more than makes up for it with a combination of witty writing, morally reprehensive characters and unfortunate circumstances, all for the amusement of both the player and the cave itself.

The Cave is one part point and click in the form of a sidescrolling platformer, and one part just plain sidescrolling platformer. What I mean by point and click is that a lot of the puzzles will require you to use items to interact with parts of the scenery. Whether you use a single item to interact with a complicated mechanism or you combine items in order to demolish an obstacle, you'll be tasked with first collecting items and then using the three characters – each switchable with a press of a direction on the d-pad - you have control of to solve the puzzles as a lot of them require multiple characters working together. A vague example I can give is that there'll be scenarios where one character will need to activate a mechanism to unlock a door for the other two to get across and then they activate a conjoining mechanism so that the one activating the first one can follow the two. Most of these puzzles aren't complete brain busters and require simple logic in order to solve (insert rod A into slot B), but there are a few that can at least make you think a fair bit. Either way, the solutions for each of these puzzles make enough sense to keep you immersed into the experience. At no point does it feel like you're merely playing a video game; you're only doing what feels natural with what you have. You could make this argument for any game, but like games such as Broken Sword and the Zelda series, The Cave goes the extra mile by implementing these in a way that feel natural. Probably helps that some of these puzzles are downright funny.

But what's a game using multiple characters without abilities? You'll be given options like a character who can temporarily gain invincibility, a character who can hold his breath underwater for as long as he wants to, a character who can hack into computer terminals, a character who can use her whip to swing across gaps, a set of characters (or twins) who can leave shadows of themselves, a character who can use telekinesis and a character who can go through thin walls... the latter, I don't quite understand, but as this is the time traveller, apparently, in the future, people can walk through thin walls. Anyway, given that you have different abilities at your disposal, there are parts where you can utilize their abilities to solve puzzles. Whether there are parts of the cave where only that one character can traverse through (like a fantasy themed section only the knight can traverse through, or a laboratory only the scientist can go through) or you can use their abilities to solve a puzzle differently, there are a few opportunities to use their unique abilities to give the gameplay even more depth, and given that the logistics behind their usage makes sense, it aids in immersion quite well. I keep making a point of immersion, but really, when a game is about exploring what you could assume is unexplored territory, the discovery of new and exciting places is what keeps you playing, and puzzles with sound logic can keep that up.

Seeing as how you're given three characters to control out of seven per playthrough, the idea is that you need to replay this game in order to fully explore the cave. With that in mind, the cave changes its structure to benefit these characters in an attempt not make subsequent adventures feel so redundant. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that go against this design choice. For one thing, there are a fair amount of areas that aren't character specific, and given that the idea of this game is to explore a previously unknown place, it loses its luster upon repeated playthroughs. The other thing is the third playthrough... in order to experience the last character's specific areas, you have to repeat the other two's specific areas. Unless you're either going through each playthrough with quite some time in between or your memory is bad, this is dull due to the fact that a puzzle simply isn't as exciting nor satisfying to solve the second time as it is the first time you do it. That feeling of “yes I did it” just isn't there the second time. I guess you could consider it the speed run? That's the only way to make that run fun while you explore the parts of the cave exclusive to that one character that you didn't use.

Then again, each playthrough is about five or so hours long, so it could be a lot worse. Still, I feel that there was a good reason why The Lost Vikings and Trine only had three characters – so that they can put more care and attention into the level design. Given how limited in quantity the character exclusive areas are though, it makes you wonder why they even bothered with these different characters. It always felt like more of these sections could've been added, you should have control of all seven characters so that the cave can be designed in a way that requires you to think about how you can use each of their powers to navigate through an increasingly tricky cave, or less characters should've been given to you; and you know, for a game that wants to play like a platformer, it sure feels like crap when you have to do some platforming. The controls are looser than a Vatican daycare and given that backtracking and repeated playthroughs are necessary in order to complete the game and get everything out of it, it can get rather annoying – the only reason it doesn't outright drive me crazy is because when you die, you'll respawn like right before the pit you fell down. I guess that makes up for the sloppy controls... it doesn't, but it's a lesser of the evil of possibly resetting an entire part. Bloody hell! To make things worse, this game is linear – outside of some parts here and there for different characters, there isn't much to it outside of what you go through the second time after your first time through. So while replaying the game is encouraged, it just isn't as good the second or third time around!

The Cave sports a cartoony visual style, giving the cave some smooth and chunky edges, vivid colors and rich lighting that amounts to a sharp look. It's quite a treat to look at, especially as you go through quite an array of different environments despite still being inside a cave. One minute, you're going through some empty caverns; another minute, you go through places that'd host underground societies, and then there's a part where it's like you're inside a volcano. That's not even mentioning each characters' exclusive environments. With them looking as great as they do, it's just amazing. Top it off with some hilarious animations, and it only gets better. The animations are important; the characters may interact with one another, but they're all mute. How else can you communicate but via charades? Like how they can use their hands to perform gestures or even move their bodies. Even better are some of the amusing walking animations, like the hillbilly flailing about while he moves or how the twins may as well be conjoined. Where it hurts is twofold – the framerate can often chug, and you can sometimes find yourself getting stuck in solid platforms which require you to reset the console. Thank god for frequent autosaves...

The music manages to provide the appropriate ambiance. Whether it's the mesmerizing echoes of the cave, to the accordions of the carnival themed places (like when you're introduced to the hillbilly or you're at one of his exclusive portions of the cave), each piece of music manages to fit well with the surroundings and draw you into the experience. Unfortunately, there aren't really any standout pieces, perhaps outside of the James Bond theme sounding song during one of the scientist's exclusive portions involving a laboratory and some sneaky stunts. The voice acting from the cave is fantastic as his voice just drips with sarcasm, complimenting the dialogue with aplomb, and the people you meet along the way also have great voice acting that oozes with personality.

It's amazing how The Cave is a game that revolves around replayability and discovery – while the discovery portion is great, the replayability portion leaves a lot to be desired. The first playthrough is excellent outside of some crap platforming elements, but each subsequent playthrough just isn't as interesting. Most people don't replay the likes of Broken Sword too quickly outside of speed running because discovery, whether it's the solution to the puzzle or possibilities of a solution, is something that only exists during ones' first playthrough. Having a lot of different characters is excellent on paper, but execution is what matters and the execution does leave a fair bit to be desired once you realize that these characters just aren't used as well as they could've been, nor that the cave is as well designed as it could've been, even if it seems like it was well done the first time you go through the cave. At the same time, I would happily recommend that you play through this game, if only for the first playthrough.

7.5/10 (Good)

Review: Skulls Of The Shogun

There isn't a whole lot in the turn based strategy genre in this generation... on consoles, at least. Sure, Vandal Hearts: Flames Of Judgment existed and turned out to be a good game, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a good game too, but... I think that's about it, and no, I don't count Disgaea 3 and 4 because quite frankly, 1 is the better game in terms of story and characters. So when Skulls Of The Shoguns unleashed itself to the unwashed masses in the form of a trailer back in 2010, it got reactions and some people were psyched. But then it got delayed until January of 2013. At least it got the Deus Ex: Human Revolution treatment of teasing us for a few years before release and not the Final Fantasy Versus XIII/Duke Nukem Forever treatment of seemingly never getting fucking finished. It's not quite as good as Deus Ex: Human Revolution (and before anybody uses the apples vs oranges argument... well, maybe I prefer a bit of that juicy, succulent apple over eating that average looking orange) and in terms of overall quality, there's no real hook to it other than good game mechanics that don't falter it, but at the end of the day, it's fairly good.

You begin the game as a recently slain Fuedal Japanese army general, raising an army of the dead to wage war against the guy who killed you. Okay, so there's not a whole lot to the concept, coming across as bare boned as a Final Fantasy game, but the effort was clearly put into the dialogue. No, not thought provoking dialogue and not emotional dialogue that'll make get you into the characters, only for them to die partway through and make you cry like a little bitch; I'm talking about pop culture references. Yeah, shit that'll be dated within the next year, if it isn't already. Now, there are some legitimate jokes in there, but it's mainly of the loud, crude, insane, “I really want to be Ren And Stimpy or Rocko's Modern Life” variety that can elicit some chuckles, but never really goes above that level. Maybe I've become so jaded at this point that I need to snort unicorn ashes to get so much as a buzz, but as far out as it attempts to be with its humor, it winds up being restrained to try and be more like a sitcom you see on TV; not going balls out to make you laugh your head off. It's not bad and as I said, it does make you laugh a bit every now and again, but it basically reeks of lazy writing with more pop culture references and internet memes that won't be funny ever again (if at all) than there are actual jokes.

The idea of the game is to move your units from one point of a map to the other, killing enemies along the way to the end goal point. Instead of moving along a grid, you instead move around within a circular area, not unlike Valkyria Chronicles. But where it works in that series, it doesn't quite in this game. Well, it does when you use archers (one of three primary classes you can use at the beginning of each level) and the monks you can acquire when you conquer shrines as they use long ranged attacks, but when you use infantry and cavalry units, it's not quite as easy to line up their physical attacks at it would seem because you often have to be at the right place to do so. But given the more fluid gridless movement system, it's a bitch when it turns out you're like a millimeter away from your desired target. Grids are a tried and true system because it helps you line up each units' attacks with precision, which is absolutely necessary in a turn based strategy game. Moving within a circular area only really works if everybody uses long ranged weapons like arrows and guns. Oh, and memo to future game designers – if you're going to include a mechanic where having two units next to each other reduces the damage they receive and doesn't knock them back when they're hit, make sure that not only do individual units do not require you to be meticulous with the cursor to select them, but that they also look different enough to distinguish without the need for a fucking magnifying glass. Thanks, it'll make selecting the right unit in a tactics game a lot easier.

That's about the extent of the game, but there are some other mechanics to play with along the way. Like I said, you can conquer shrines in order to acquire some spellcasters like a healer, a fire mage and a wind mage, but you can also conquer rice paddies, which are used to pay for new archer, infantry and cavalry units. There are also skulls that units can eat. These skulls are the remains of enemies that have been killed and although eating one takes up an action – of which you get five per turn – it can also heal the unit that eats it. If a unit eats three, then they will essentially level up, allowing them to hit harder. These mechanics insert some technicality into an otherwise simplistic system as there is a fair bit to think about. I mean, a lot of what this game revolves around is moving towards the enemy and then hitting them until they die unless you can push them off of a cliff (there's knockback included in each hit). Resource management allows you to call in for reinforcements and acquire some supersoldiers to protect your general because, powerful as he is, if he dies in battle, you lose automatically.

The mechanics do work out finely for the most part as you can move your soldiers about and execute commands with little to no problems, and the whole multi unit wall mechanic is an interesting one that I've found myself using quite a lot to make things a bit easier on myself when fighting a barrage of enemies. On the whole, fights do feel balanced as they rely more on brains than on powergrinding. Nothing complicated as a lot of this is baseline shit, but what's there works well in that pick up and play kind of way. That's what this game's true aim is – being able to pick up and play it. This is perfectly exemplified in the multiplayer mode, where you can face up to three other players either locally or online to see who's the better tactician, and who can make the best of their five actions per turn with what options you're all given. Things can get especially chaotic with multiple people playing. Nothing beats a good old fasioned alliance with another player, only to backstab him to gain an advantage in the long run.

It's actually funny the more I think about the single player campaign – this game feels like it could've worked better as an RTS than a turn based strategy game. From the gridless movement, to the wall system, to resource management, not to mention the fact that it seems to move at a snail's pace at the worst of times, it's begging to be in real time. A lot of the time, the game will trick you into thinking you've won the battle, only to send in some reinforcements. This was cute the first couple of times, but after a while, it really feels like these battles drag on. With baseline mechanics, you have to make up more inventive reasons to drag on battles than “oh there are hidden reinforcements for the fifth time oh golly”. So cool, we get to fight the same enemies we've already fought like five seconds ago. When is this mission over? Oh, and you want to know the funniest part? This game is about five hours long. No, I'm not kidding, just five hours. When five hours feels too long, you should probably head back to the planning stage. But then I think back to the multiplayer mode and think about how well the system works there, which lead me to the conclusion that there was, indeed, no creativity put into the battle scenarios – just the fucking dialogue. Barely.

I've already made a remark about the fact that a lot of your units look similar to one another with subtle differences, which clashes with the wall mechanic, so unfortunately, we've hit a bit of a snag in the graphical department in terms of a lack of creativity in individual unit type design. It's a shame, because it is a good looking game. Sure, it looks like a Flash cartoon where they bob about like bobble heads at times, but the crisp, colorful models are very well animated and the locations look beautiful. They all look like they're inspired by feudal Japanese art with all the cherry blossom leaves and shit. Considering the subject matter, it's also very fitting. Also consider the soundtrack. While there's some electronic beats in there, you'll also hear some traditional Japanese folk melodies in there. It's mainly put in for ambiance during the battles, but it still sounds good all the same.

Skulls Of The Shogun is the kind of game that likes to believe it's a fun loving game with its colorful visuals and wacky dialogue, but while the visuals nail it, the dialogue alternates between chuckleworthy and unfunny, given that it'd rather make references than tell actual jokes. The gameplay itself simplifies the turn based strategy formula mainly for ease of congestion, but while it works either in heated matches against your mates or for a little while in the single player campaign, it works against itself as each level drags on longer than it has any right to due to a lack of creativity put into each of the battles beyond “oh here are some units go kill them now”. Given that enemies are generally balanced and each of the missions do get incrementally harder, it really is just a lack of variety in the missions and units that drag this game down. Boredom does eventually settle in and all of the charming visuals and dialogue in the world can't save you from it. Consider this a tepid recommendation as the mechanics themselves are finely tuned and the multiplayer mode is fantastically done... just wish the campaign was more tightly paced.

6.5/10 (Above Average)