Investigative review: "Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth"
I like this game. Well, I like this whole series. This review will be a shameless pitch of the entire series, including the most recent entry. Take it all in, and don't think about it too much. You'll want to save your brain power for the games themselves.
ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS: MILES EDGEWORTH is the fifth game in a series with a decade-long history in Japan, though only half of that decade has featured any North American presence. In 2001, the very first GYAKUTEN SAIBAN game hit the Game Boy Advance in Japan. That game would be ported to the DS in 2005 and localized in America as PHOENIX WRIGHT: ACE ATTORNEY. Two more Phoenix Wright titles would round out the base trilogy. A fourth game, released two years ago, starred a new defense lawyer; APOLLO JUSTICE: ACE ATTORNEY. And now, in game number five, players take control of Wright's rival, prosecutor Miles Edgeworth.
Divide and Review: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
"Between the idea and the reality [...] lies the shadow." - T.S. Eliot
Welcome to the world of Kingdom Hearts; a place that started as a simple mash-up of Disney and Final Fantasy characters, and has since become a breeding ground for recapitulated and augmented concepts of identity.
KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS, for Nintendo DS, is the fourth major release in the series, and the second "side-story" (after KINGDOM HEARTS: CHAIN OF MEMORIES for GBA and remade for PS2). Both Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days take place, chronologically, in the one year span of time between KINGDOM HEARTS and KINGDOM HEARTS II (both PS2).
While the semantics of the English version of the game are still hard for me to wrap my mind around -- the "heartless" are creatures that desire and consume hearts, whereas the "nobodies" are leftover/by-product entities when a creature loses its heart -- the point is that 358/2 Days sets Roxas as the protagonist. He is the "nobody" form of Sora, who at the beginning of 358/2 Days is traipsing through Castle Oblivion, having his memories twisted and stolen by a coerced and conveniently helpless Naminé. Eventually, Sora enters a state of hibernation, and he will not wake again until *after* the first few hours of Kingdom Hearts II.
If you're itching to know what happens in that year, check out our spoilerific review, replete with plot details and gameplay mechanics, by continuing forward.
Extremer Review: "Space Invaders Extreme 2"
Last year's SPACE INVADERS EXTREME celebrated the 30th anniversary of Taito's classic arcade shooter. Taito and Square Enix released this game on DS and PSP, and an XBLA version was released with extra work from Backbone Entertainment. SIE was a success on all platforms, and it had small but useful differences on each platform. What kept the gameplay alive in this generation was generally simple execution of small features that, taken collectively, forced players to add strategy to their gameplay. No longer would it be a free-for-all "kill everything on screen." Killing what, when, and how many would all make a difference.
So, how do you take something that already went to the extreme, to the extremER? That's the question I pondered while awaiting receipt of my copy of SPACE INVADERS EXTREME 2. And yes, the bad grammar was a part of that thought process. Stupid inconsistent rules for comparative and superlative adjectives.
I was worried that the developers would come to all the wrong conclusions: add tons of not-fun modes that derive too many mechanics from games that aren't Space Invaders; attempt to overwhelm players with an exorbitant amount of stages; add secondary (tertiary?) guns and power-ups that can be activated with the press of a different button; attempt touch-screen functionality on the DS. Any and all of these things probably would've made SIE2 less fun than SIE. Somehow, against all odds, the DS-exclusive sequel came out slightly stronger than the first. And here's how they did it.
Review: "The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road"
Is L. Frank Baum turning in his grave? Probably, but this game would certainly not be the first instance when a non-canonical "Oz" work threw the original plot out the window. Alongside the highly popular musical (and revisionist book from which it originated) "Wicked," the Japanese had actually made one anime film and two anime TV series out of the Oz franchise in the '80s and early '90s.
So before anyone gets all upset about what this game is and what it tries to do with the lovable characters of Oz, there are plenty bigger fish to fry.
THE WIZARD OF OZ: BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD was originally released in Japan under the name RIZ-ZOAWD (an anagram for "Wizard Oz"). The game was developed by Media.Vision, creators of the WILD ARMS series. D3 published the game in Japan, and Xseed Games did the English localization.
In this fanciful little RPG, you play as Dorothy. Much of the setting sounds right to the casual Oz fan, but there are enough little twists to make this feel like a Japanese fanfic instead of a re-telling of the original book.
DS Review With Obligatory History Included: "Final Fantasy IV"
Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, had varying levels of involvement with each installment. He was most actively involved in I through V, then had decreasing involvement from VI on (with IX being an exception). Then, after FFX, Sakaguchi left Square (Enix) and formed his own company, Mistwalker.
But the old school, "Sakaguchi-style" Final Fantasy games have been ported and remade plenty of times. Among Sakaguchi's original five titles, most everyone agrees that his greatest achievement was FINAL FANTASY IV. The game was originally planned for an NES (Famicom) release (to keep up with Enix's four Dragon Quest titles on the same console), but that idea was scrapped, and FFIV made the jump into the wonderful world of 16-bit Super Famicom goodness.
The SNES original, in all its beautiful, pre-Mode-7 glory. 'Sup Red Wings?
That "original" 16-bit version, after being released in Japan, came to America as FINAL FANTASY II (stupid re-numbering), since Americans didn't get the other two NES releases. But they changed that version to facilitate American tastes. That is, they cut a bunch of additional "advanced" abilities and made the game a whole lot easier. This version got re-released in Japan as FINAL FANTASY IV EASY TYPE (no, I'm not kidding), except they didn't have all the dummied-out abilities and items; just the numerical/system changes.
The game was then released on PlayStation, first separately in Japan as just FINAL FANTASY IV. The only major change? Added FMV opening and ending cut scenes that, by today's standards, look disgusting. This same version came to America under FINAL FANTASY CHRONICLES (which had FFIV and Chrono Trigger in one package deal).
Developer TOSE did an overhaul of FFIV in FINAL FANTASY IV ADVANCE for Game Boy Advance. Technically, they did this for the whole Super Nintendo trilogy (IV, V, VI). The new addition to this version? Every playable character could be a part of your end party. Anyone who knows their FFIV knows the final party: Cecil, Kain, Rosa, Rydia, Edge. This all changed in FFIV Advance. They also added new "final weapons" for each of the game's dozen or so playable characters, which were found in a super-hard bonus dungeon. Also, the English version got a much-needed re-translation.
Then, finally, in 2008, we received what I believe to be the definitive version of FINAL FANTASY IV, despite all the changes. Published on the Nintendo DS, and co-developed by Square Enix and Matrix Software (the same people who did the FFIII DS remake), this version was leaps-and-bounds better, and ready for a new market.
Wensday? Wendseday?
I cannot spell Wednesday without a spellchecker. I tried to spell it wrong in the title for humorous effect and got it right. The rest of this post will concern what I played this week and will not contain any misspellings. Fingers crossed.
A BOY AND HIS BLOB
Weeeeee!
This is a re-imagining of the original NES title of the same name. You take control of a boy with a pet blob. The boy feeds the blob jelly beans that cause him to transform into ladders, holes, trampolines, etc. Platform puzzling ensues. I played the first couple levels and found the whole thing a delight. The graphics are storybookish (technically a misspelling), and so far there has been no dialogue at all. The effect is quite charming, but the minimalism has left me at a loss for the plot. There's no real explanation of what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. There's a difference between understatement and absence.
The puzzling has been simple so far, but the controls are well done. It's easy to choose your jelly beans, and the blob's reactions to them are intuitive.
BRUTAL LEGEND
It's a commentary on Brutal Legend that I chose to play A Boy and his Blob instead. Tim Schafer is a very funny fellow, and it shines through in this game; the problem I had with it is that there are long sections where I am not in cutscenes. The gameplay isn't bad, it's just not stellar. And what I really want is more Jack Black cracking jokes and wailing on his guitar.
Despite what the demo would lead you to believe, combat isn't really the main thrust of the game. You spend lots of time tooling around the countryside while getting in fights, participating in various car races and engaging in a bizarre RTS game. In any other game I'd probably have been drawn right in, but it's not really what I was looking for from Brutal Legend.
During the RTS sections you move Eddie around to claim fan geysers, which provide you currency for buying more units that then take to the field. You can attack the incoming enemies yourself, so the game gets kind of a DYNASTY WARRIORS vibe. The RTS elements of the game are interesting, but I found it hard to order my squads to do much when I wasn't around. I've played only the first RTS mission, so if Rex or Gamegnathus fared any better, they should post a comment. And you should read it.
For me the mash-up worked against Brutal Legend rather then for it. Sandboxing is all the rage, but spending all my time putzing around the hillsides looking for my next mission undermined the over-the-top feel that drew me to the game.
But one of your moves is called "Facemelter," so let's face it: you're going to play this game.
KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS
I played a few of the challenges, but they only reinforce the game's weakest aspect: continual repetition. There's no way I'm doing every mission three times, sometimes four. The rule changes aren't drastic enough to make it interesting. Everything else to be said about this game I've said in our delightful podcasts.
I'm blown away by this amazing FINAL FANTASY TACTICS mod. I've been dying to play it, but WoW and work have interfered. Having read through the notes, I can tell you they've addressed the most severe imbalances to FFT's combat system. The items also have all been drastically improved, giving them better balance and, shockingly, even more variety. A must-have for Twinks everywhere. I also should point out that this is perfectly legal to emulate if you own a PlayStation and the original game.
Console-Comparative/Informative Review: "Space Invaders Extreme"
I'm generally wary when developers remake a game, or add an entry to a game's series, by merely tacking on a buzz word like "Super" or "Extreme" and then running said franchise into the ground with lackluster improvements and game-breaking mistakes. It's happened many, many times. But for every bad Super/Extreme/Ultimate version of a game, there's a good one too. So you hedge your bets and give these things a try, hoping for the best.
Indeed, during the '80s and '90s, the original 1978 arcade hit SPACE INVADERS was ported and graphically enhanced for nearly a dozen different platforms. Despite making huge waves in the early world of arcade gaming, Taito allowed their classic arcade shooter to lie dormant for some time. But after Taito was bought out by Square Enix, the good folks at Square Enix did what they do best: milk all the possible potential out of a franchise. SPACE INVADERS EXTREME is an example of how you do the whole "remake" thing right, particularly for classic arcade titles.
Boss fight! (Stage 3 boss, hard version)
To mark the 30th anniversary of the classic game, Square Enix released two versions of their fully upgraded Space Invaders Extreme to the public in late 2008: one for the DS, and another for the PSP. Six months later, on Xbox Live Arcade, a third version of the game was released, featuring four-player online modes and optional expansions. The game was a big enough hit that Square Enix and Taito have already released a sequel, SPACE INVADERS EXTREME 2, exclusively for the DS (arguably the most interesting platform for the title, due to the two screens and the tall orientation).
The reason the remake is so successful? There is no one reason, but in my time playing the game, I've been able to observe a few reasons why the game is addictive enough for today's audience that you'd want to keep going back to it, the same way it was once such a wonderful novelty 30 years ago.
The basic gameplay is the same. You're a little space ship stuck to the bottom of the screen, only able to move left and right, and you shoot vertically at waves of alien ships, grouped in different formations. You shoot up, the enemy shoots down. You avoid their shots, and you hit them. That's the basis of Space Invaders.
DS version does boss fights and bonus rounds in double-screen, super-tall mode.
Extreme adds a whole bunch of fun stuff. For starters, there are the power-ups. The four basic power-ups are a bomb (area of effect explosions on contact), a broad shot (five vertical beams instead of one), a laser (persistent, death-dealing blue beam of awesomeness), and a shield. These four power-ups are generally obtained by killing four enemies of the same color in a row, with different colors corresponding to the power-ups. The three offensive power-ups also have "super" versions that can be obtained in bonus rounds: bigger bomb explosions, wider broad shots, and an undeflectable giant blue laser (this last power-up is undoubtedly the coolest thing in the game). Each power-up has an ideal situation for use between each wave of enemies, as the waves are scripted per stage and are in no way randomized.
(Also know that there are a few more special guns to obtain in bonus rounds; they're hard to describe, but generally, they're quite destructive.)
Then there are the boss fights. These are most fun (and most complicated) on the DS, because the action takes place across both screens. In one fight (stage 4 boss), you have to ricochet your bullets on regular enemies in front of you, have them bounce back, dodge the bullet, and have it hit the boss (who is behind you). It's the only time in the game that your ship is positioned on the top screen. Genius idea? Yes! But also a frustrating and difficult boss, to be sure.
The game's presentation is another strong point. Visually, the game retains its pixelated roots by intentionally designing everything in pixelated blocks. But the animation is incredibly smooth, and the graphical effects are fantastic. In the background of each level, a continually-looped movie plays. It's faded dark enough so that the action on the screen takes prominence, but this colorful addition to the game really helps to make it stand out.
The audio is also fantastic. The soundtrack is a great blend of electronica (with an emphasis on blending chiptunes and modern synth), but the real treat is that every single shot fired has a sound effect played in time with the music. Depending on which beat, or whether you're on the beat or hitting in-between beats, a different tone might play when you fire. If your bullet hits a shield, you hear a cymbal crash. And if the bullet is deflected, you'll hear a different sound. If your bullet hits an enemy's bullet instead of an enemy, that makes a unique sound as well. But no matter what, the sound effects are processed alongside the rhythm of the music playing. Whoever programmed this was a genius.
Never thought I'd associate high-end graphics with Space Invaders. But the XBLA version is stunning.
My two complaints about the game are as follows: the difficulty curve gets a little ridiculous, and the game could offer more content. There are only five stages in the game, but stage 3 has an "A" and "B" version, stage 4 has A B C, and stage 5 has A B C D. This branching path for stages can only be traveled based on high scores. If you stick to the "A" Path, the game is tremendously easy. But if you get a high enough score (and thus, rank) for the stage, you have the option to proceed down a harder path. And let me tell you, 5-D is just absurdly difficult. I've been playing the game for months and still cannot beat it. Even 5-C was a huge challenge that took me over a dozen attempts to complete.
But if I did beat 5-D, that would be the last thing I have to do. I've played the same stages over and over, in basically the same modes. The setup is great, but we need more content! The XBLA version of Space Invaders Extreme offers some remedy with the downloadable content and a great multiplayer mode, but even that isn't enough. Hopefully, SIE2 will save the day with all of its new modes and additional stages.
Taito and Square Enix set the framework for a great casual shooter. Now just tweak it, balance the difficulty, and throw tons of content in, and we'll have something that nears perfection. But Space Invaders Extreme, even with these complaints, is a super-fun game that utilizes a classic arcade title in the best of ways. So, whether it's the two-screen DS version, the wide-screen PSP version, or the extra-content XBLA version, you're in for a 4-out-of-5 experience.
Review: "Rhythm Heaven"
Cheering on a charming, genial little game like RHYTHM HEAVEN for the Nintendo DS is tricky business.
If there's one thing Nintendo has done well by the DS and the Wii -- and there may be only one thing -- it's been the stacks and stacks of mostly playable mini-game collections you can find on either console. But we've seen so many of them by now that rooting for another one is like begging for whatever Seth Rogen / Jonah Hill / Jason Segel / Leslie Mann bromance that Judd Apatow cooks up next. Fun enough, but increasingly familiar.
THE SETUP
What pop star _doesn't_ have an army of sentient monkeys aping her every move? Wordplay!
Rhythm Heaven blends the manic mini-game slide-shows of the WARIO WARE titles with the beat-heavy gameplay of ELITE BEAT AGENTS. If you've ever played the latter, you know the DS can pull off rhythm games remarkably well. Rhythm Heaven isn't as compulsively playable as Elite Beat is, but as a mini-game collection, it works well enough.
The game offers 24 base-level mini-games that are unlocked sequentially. Each set of four games is capped with a "remix" level that strings the mini-games together in a challenging new way, bringing the initial batch of stages to 30.
To complete a mini-game, you tap, slide or flick the DS in time to movements on the left or right screen (the game forces you to hold the DS storybook-style). Stages like "Love Lizards" challenge you to Simon Says-style mimicry; others require rote memorization and quick reflexes.
Once you complete the first 30 stages, the game opens up a little further by adding 16 difficult variants of mini-games you've already completed and four new remixes. These remixes get especially tough; they switch between all of the mini-games you've unlocked, rather than just the four in their respective columns.
So as a toy and an unlock-a-thon, Rhythm Heaven succeeds. But as a full-throated $30 game, it has issues.
Cute. Simple. Impossible, if you're going for a perfect.
Even with dozens of valuable goodies, Rhythm Heaven has trouble creating a satisfactory sense of momentum. You open new mini-games by completing the ones before them, and you unlock extras by earning medals in each of the mini-games and remix stages. There seem to be just four grades for each stage -- "Try Again," "OK," "Just OK" and "Superb" -- and the only way to medal is to clear the stage with a "Superb."
The rub lies in the complete opaqueness of the criteria on which you're graded. You generally can tell if you're messing up so badly that you're going to get a "Try Again." But the difference between "OK" and "Just OK" is unknowable, and the "Superb" quota varies from stage to stage. You can fumble four or five times in "Lockstep" and still snag a medal, but flubbing just once in the utterly infuriating "Fillbots" is enough to demote you to "Just OK."
The game occasionally will challenge you to earn a "perfect" after you've picked up a medal. These opportunities -- you get three chances per -- pop up randomly, like the comets in SUPER MARIO GALAXY.
In all my hours with Rhythm Heaven, I managed only one perfect. The game is absolutely unforgiving about accuracy, and when you're entering 200 to 300 combinations of taps, slides and flicks in the space of a minute or two, the likelihood that you'll hit every one becomes brutally small.
THE PRESENTATION
Stretch out your neck! Tap, flick!
Wario Ware veterans will remember that those games' visual charm lay in their shopworn look. Rhythm Heaven carries over a lot of that, though some of the games are inadvertently attractive. The two "Rhythm Rally" games, in which bobbleheaded dudes face off over a polygonal ping pong table, isn't the most sophisticated DS imagery out there, but it is clean. Other mini-games, like "Munchy Monk," look like careless hand-drawn garbage. ("Munchy Monk" is my favorite stage of the bunch.)
The audio is much more consistent, and thankfully so. Aside from the remix stages, in which you're forced to rely partially on visual cues, Rhythm Heaven can be played almost entirely without looking at your DS. Some stages implicitly encourage you to do as much, inserting objects that obscure your view of the action and throw you off the beat.
The music, by Japanese vocalist Tsunku and other artists you haven't heard of, is bubbly, pleasant and occasionally catchy. It all exists to serve the mini-games, which is smart, but it isn't Jumpin' Jack Flash or September, either (just two of the tracks that made Elite Beat Agents so great).
THE JUDGMENT
If Rhythm Heaven gave you a better way to gauge your ability, or if it were a little more generous with "perfect" timing, it would be easy to recommend. But unsparing difficulty works only when you can figure out a way to better your play. Rhythm Heaven offers no clues.
But as a disposable pile of mini-games, or as a time-waster on long car trips, the game is just fine.
Review: "Henry Hatsworth"
I expect a lot of privileged children will wake up Easter morning, find HENRY HATSWORTH IN THE PUZZLING ADVENTURE in their baskets and, after a long day of wall-surfing and block-juggling, cry themselves to sleep.
The game isn't bad. In fact, in almost every department, including a steampunkish Studio Ghibli look, it's extremely proficient. But its difficulty is unsparing and surprisngly incongruous with those aggressively colorful visuals.
Part of me loved it for that. The other part — the one that makes decisions — was ready to chuck my DS through my bedroom window.
THE SETUP
In Henry Hatsworth, you control a mannered, David Livingstone-esque fellow who dons desert fatigues and becomes 20 years younger when his super meter is full enough.
Filling said meter requires a tap of the Y button, which freezes the platforming / beat-'em-up action on the top screen and focuses your attention on the puzzle below. Blocks rise steadily from the bottom of the screen, a la TETRIS ATTACK. Matching three or more like-colored blocks erases them from the puzzle screen and gives a boost to your super meter.
Good show!
Because matching regular blocks will get you only so much super-juice, you'll have to be constantly dispatching top-screen enemies for ammunition. Once banished from the platforming world, they move down to the puzzle screen, where they fuck up your Christmas in different ways. Most enemies simply turn into frowny-face blocks; others lock blocks in place, freeze a column or increase the rate at which the blocks rise.
Matching up these trouble blocks gives you substantial super-meter gains. Fill the gauge halfway, and Henry goes 19th century super-saiyan, with a bushy red moustache and full-on safari gear. If you fill the meter all the way, you'll temporarily summon a clockwork robot suit that can take out anything in the game in a few hits.
The platforming action is terrific and easily could stand on its own. Controls are extremely responsive, and there are only a few moments when Henry will be doing something other than exactly what you've asked him to do. By the end of the game, he'll have all the moves you could expect from a side-scrolling man of letters.
The puzzle component isn't as strong. It really is BEJEWELED with a little extra flair and no illegal moves. But the way it feeds the platforming is inspired, and you'll be fairly impressed with your multi-tasking dexterity by the time you hit Tealand, the game's fifth and final world. The way you use items — collect them on the top-screen, at which point they travel to the puzzle screen, where they must be matched before they're activated — is a particularly nice touch.
For the first few hours of Henry Hatsworth, everything comes up roses. Unfortunately, frustration and burnout begin to settle in shortly hitting the game's third world. Some levels take more than 20 minutes just to navigate, and because there are about 40 of these suckers — most of which you're encouraged to troll through a second or third time for secrets — repetition becomes a real threat.
When you've got trouble blocks peeking out of the bottom screen, it's time to get puzzlin'.
Difficulty shoots up profoundly at about the same time. The game's many bosses are fun to fight, but they become extraordinarily tough. Most levels will kill forward momentum deliberately, at least once or twice, to wall you in with dozens of enemies at the same time.
All of these hurdles are extraordinarily satisfying once you've cleared them. Think Dario in CHRONO CROSS. But when you watch the 50 lives you've amassed in the game's earlier, easier levels dwindle into the single digits, just because you can't puzzle quickly enough or combo with enough discipline, well, it'll drive you up a wall.
I like tough beat-'em-ups. GODHAND and VIEWTIFUL JOE are two of my all time-favorite games. But those two were challenging from minute one, whereas Hatsworth holds your hand for a few hours before ramping up the difficulty dramatically with no warning at all.
When you beat the game, you unlock the much more difficult "Gentleman Mode." I'll not be playing Gentleman Mode.
There are a few other annoyances. At times, you''ll be keyed into what's happening on the puzzle screen with Zen-like clarity, but because the game has to finish its poof and slide animations before you can make your next move, sometimes you'll be left hammering on the A-button fruitlessly as your combo counter disappears.
And the game could offer you a more tangible sense of progress. Finishing each world grants your mech suit a few new abilities, and you can upgrade your combat and puzzle-solving efficiency with currency you collect from treasure chests and enemies. But you'll still get to a point in Tealand where you're bashing or blasting rank-and-file foot soldiers 15 times or more before they go down.
THE PRESENTATION
Score one for sprites and MIDIs, because Henry Hatsworth looks and sounds stunning.
All of the enemies and characters in the game, including Henry himself, are thoughtfully designed and animate nicely. The worlds have their own pleasing, disparate palettes, and they manage to take you through a variety of locales without resorting to standard platforming tropes. You won't see desert, fire or ice worlds here; instead, you get floating pirate ships, giant Tetrominoes and cerulean jungles. The game works the whole crayon box and is much better for it.
There's even some variation within the worlds themselves, which sets Henry Hatsworth apart from too many beat-'em-ups.
The soundtrack, which you can download legally here, is just as great, especially if you're as excited by jazzy circus music as I am. There's a vaguely creepy, carnivalian air about some of it, like those ridiculous (and perfect) CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM riffs but with a little extra zip.
The story and characters (forgot to carve aside a spot for these in our review template; will remedy this soon) are as slight as you'd expect from a game like this, but it's all certainly charming enough. In the Hatsworth universe, clothes make the man, and Henry is after a golden suit that would make him the world's No. 1 gentleman. Along the way, he'll have to fend off unscrupulous competitor Leopold Charles Anthony Weaselby the Third — the Dr. Robotnik to Henry's Sonic — and a rogues gallery of womanizers, invalids and fat ladies.
THE JUDGMENT
If you can stomach the game's wildly uneven difficulty and occasional bouts of burnout, HENRY HATSWORTH IN THE PUZZLING ADVENTURE will give you about a dozen hours of great platforming supplemented by middling puzzle play. Taken altogether, the game is more than the sum of its parts, and it makes a fine addition to the DS' ever-growing library of niche action titles.