The story of Persona 3 attempts to put the player in the shoes of a high school student, but with a disturbing twist. A transfer student to the prestigious Gekkokan High, the player arrives late at night, and it is immediately clear that something is wrong. Anything electronic has shut down, the sky has turned a sickly green, and every living person has been transformed into a huge black coffin. In short order, the player is drafted into a fight between Shadows — monsters that roam the hidden Dark Hour — and humans capable of using Personas, which can best be described as weaponized personality traits. Over the course of the school year, the player will form Social Links to improve their Personas, becoming closer to the people around them in an attempt to defy the inevitable end that fate has set out for them. The story of Persona 3 uses strong themes that focus primarily on the search for a meaning in life, and the inevitably doomed, but not purposeless, fight against the unavoidable end that awaits every living thing. Though it might seem a little morbid, the story is in fact quite hopeful. In the final analysis, the point of the story is that even though everyone will eventually die, the bonds we form during our lives and the impact we have on other people can not only hold back death, but defeat it entirely.

Other carryovers from Persona 4 include co-op attacks, and the ability to have your party members save you from a fatal blow.

For those who have played one or both of the previous versions of Persona 3, the main draw of this iteration will be the inclusion of a female main character, who brings her own Social Links to the table as well as a personality vastly different from that of the male main character. The new protagonist is enough to make the story feel far fresher than one would expect from the third time through a game, since her Social Links tend to deal with characters that the male main character had a far more passive connection with, such as Akihiko, Junpei, and Shinjiro. The female lead also gets the lion’s share of mechanical improvements, such as the ability to decide whether a relationship turns romantic or not, a change sadly not shared with the male.

Persona 3 features a turn-based combat system which encourages a focus on elemental attacks by way of the One More system. In short, a move that hits a weakness will grant the attacker one more turn, as well as knocking down the target. In Persona 3 and FES, being knocked down would burn one *additional* turn, as the character or monster stood up. However, in Persona 3 Portable an additional turn is only lost if the target is hit by two consecutive moves that they are weak against, a holdover from Persona 4. The practical upshot of this alteration is that the player now must choose between the extra damage of an All-Out Attack or further turns (which on the whole is a more balanced and reasonable approach).

The game’s balance has undergone a number of other small, yet significant, alterations, and unfortunately not all of them are for the better. For example, the effects of becoming fatigued while exploring Tartarus only show up after you leave the dungeon, which removes an annoying artificial limit on how long players could explore the tower. On the other hand, instead of curing the party automatically and for free whenever they return to the ground floor, players will now have to pay the save point to heal them. This really just ends up replacing one artificial limit with another, given how quickly and painfully the costs for healing rise.

There are some changes, however, which are undeniably a step in the right direction. Powerful Fusion spells have been removed, replaced with items that have the same effect but which are bought from the Antique store with gems. This is a particularly good move, as it not only removes the ability to crush everything in the late game with the balance-shattering Armageddon/Victory Cry combo, but also makes it possible to have useful early game Fusions like Cadenza and Best Friends throughout the entire game. Similarly, Personas now give up Spell Cards, which instantly teach a Persona the ability on the card, meaning creating a fully-customized party is now far more feasible. In addition, a wide variety of optional bosses and challenges have been added, giving players an opportunity to make use of these newfound powers. Between these changes and the ability to directly control your characters in combat, this rebalancing is generally to the game’s benefit.

Unsurprisingly, the visuals of Persona 3 have taken a bit of a downturn in its migration from the PS2. Though the overall style has made the transition without too much damage, the alterations made to the interface cause significant issues. The single biggest issue is the alteration of the normal field exploration from a normal walk-about-and-chat to a point and click interface, with the player character replaced by a cursor. This was probably done because of technical limitations, but for a game which is attempting to immerse the player in the world of a high-school teenager, the inability to actually walk around school or explore the town is a definite blow to suspension of disbelief. On the whole, the interface is easily navigable and simple enough to figure out, and the player does get a more traditional movement system while exploring Tartarus, but the fact that it actively works against the game is a significant problem.

The main character’s switch in gender has required the re-recording of a fair number of voiced lines, and there are a few here and there whose volume and tone are a little off, but for the most part, the old and new lines mesh well. Similarly, though most of the soundtrack is unchanged from previous versions of Persona 3, there have been a few new additions. The female main character gets her own combat and walking-around-school music, as well as a few other tracks unique to her side of the game. The new tracks really help differentiate the female side of the game from that of the male, providing a slightly more feminine twist to the soundtrack.

Push dog to talk.

While Shin Megami Tensei games often feature modifiable difficulty levels, Persona 3 Portable takes this to a new level, offering no fewer than five difficulty settings right from the start. This ranges from Beginner, which allows the player to restart battles should the unthinkable happen, to the aptly titled Maniac, which not only boosts the damage output of enemies and the cost of resummoning Personas, but also allows for absolutely no carryover during New Game +. On the whole, having direct control over party members, access to useful Fusion spells throughout the entire game, and the ability to customize Personas with Spell Cards makes Persona 3 Portable significantly easier than previous incarnations of the title, but the ability to set the difficulty level with such precision should help smooth over any misgivings players have on this subject.

In the end, the improvements to the game’s more arcane and unbalanced elements make Portable the more player-friendly version of Persona 3, but the damage that the more haphazard attempts at rebalancing and actively repellant new interface inflict cause some serious issues. On the whole, I would recommend that players new to the series to start with one of the console versions, but Persona 3 Portable‘s new elements and deeper look at some less developed characters should make it highly attractive to Persona fans.

The title refers to the US government’s super-secret spy agency, kept separate from most of the Washington bureaucracy to give America deniability when they want bad guys dead in a hurry, but don’t want it leading back to the White House. After an unorthodox entrance exam, new guy Mike Thorton (yes, Thorton with just one ‘n’) joins the team and learns the score.  A missile stolen from US defense contractor Halbech just shot down a civilian airliner in Saudi Arabia,  and Thorton soon finds the downed plane is just the latest piece in a big, scary, PMC-driven conspiracy puzzle. Granted, “corrupt businessman ruins everything for profit” is hardly new, but the presentation is one of the game’s strongest aspects, and we’ll get back to it in a moment.

The game controls decently as a typical third-person actioner: WASD+mouselook handle movement and aiming; function keys cover special abilities, grenades, and weapon and ammo selection; space sticks you to cover and alternates with E for various context-sensitive actions. Simple and easy-to-learn minigames cover hacking, electrical bypasses, and lockpicking, though the mouse is a touch sensitive for the hacking interface. The main issue here is less the control scheme than environmental limitations, since jumping, climbing, and whatnot can only happen at spots marked by a glowing arrow. Even if it looks like you could just step over that concrete barrier or hop down from that platform, you’re not going anywhere if there’s no arrow to let you.  The map is also less than helpful, borrowing the Fallout 3 “feature” of displaying multiple floors right on top of each other.

In between the action, you’ll rest up at safehouses, which allow you to follow up on mission leads, respond to emails from your various contacts, and kit out your weapons and armor with accessories.  Most just punch up the numbers for damage per shot, recoil, sound dampening, and so on. Others grant, for example, a short delay before cameras spot you or reduced cooldown on abilities. You also have access to a black market clearinghouse to buy and sell equipment, and gain access to intelligence: tactical data and background about targets, detailed maps, even paying someone to draw off the more experienced guards from a mission. Although the clearinghouse could use a function to equip things you just bought, overall the system works fine.

Well, I could speed things up if you REALLY want me to…

Combat is functional, but riddled with smaller issues that boil down to the AI being wildly inconsistent. At times they’re extremely imperceptive and laughably poor shots.  Other times they’ll go on full alert if they catch a glimpse of you, and can easily tear chunks out of you at long range. The game does set up several legitimately intense firefights, and stealth takedowns are sometimes flashy and always satisfying to pull off, but the problem is that AI goofiness happens all the time. Additionally, stealth is usually an option, but you’ll routinely be forced into a raging gun battle, and you’ll pretty much have to shoot your way out.

Boss battles present a larger problem, and if you weren’t aware this game had them, you might get curbstomped in a hurry. One oft-cited breaking point is a battle late in Moscow against an eighties-obsessed drug-using mobster, who will sometimes bum-rush you and cut you to pieces if you do anything other than run for your life.  Without good skill in weapons the fight can take a while, and your own resources are not limitless. The game bills itself as “the espionage RPG” and proudly states your weapon is choice, but you’ll want a gun ready when it decides to go Metal Gear Solid and fling a caped assassin who can turn invisible at you. It’s jarring to say the least, and while preparation can take the sting out of them, they never stop feeling out of place.

You can customize Thorton’s abilities to your liking, picking one of three preset backgrounds and upgrading skill proficiencies over time.  Ranging from weapons to technical abilities to physical hardiness, upgraded skills unlock special abilities: precision aiming, enemy detection, silent running, damage reduction, and so on. Some abilities are fairly unrealistic – no nanomachines are present to explain pulling off five headshots simultaneously – but they oddly fit the over-the-top nature of combat. You also gain bonus perks for achievements – drop 50 guys non-lethally, or mix up your dialog responses in one conversation – and they carry practical in-game rewards. Once you get used to it, it’s a lot of fun to build your own spy.

Alpha Protocol‘s visuals aren’t bad on the surface, with serviceable character animation and some decent level design. Areas are distinctive, colorful, and usually designed to encourage both stealthy and loud approaches.  Exploration often reveals alternate entrances or gaps in enemy patrols, and it’s possible to completely ghost some missions with zero alarms or takedowns. However, character models don’t seem to interact with the environment well; people often float over the ground rather than actually walk across it, and you’ll occasionally stick to a surface that’s not there. Faces look fine until you catch different people doing the same exact smirk, and the endgame is far too fond of linear corridors and scripted, confusing, or just plain frustrating shoot-outs.

From front to back: unconscious stripper, obvious spy, oblivious guard, and the most interesting wall in the world.

Audio is a major redeeming factor, from weighty gunfire to the well-paced soundtrack. Apart from a smattering of licensed music, Alpha Protocol features a healthy mix of quiet stealth tracks and blaring orchestras or rock pieces for the action. The Rome section stands out in both departments; an interactive cutscene where you’re confronted by a sinister private military contractor is an excellent example, with tense strings backing the menacing tone of the conversation. Speaking of that, veteran actors and newcomers alike give standout performances.  No surprise for, say, Jim Cummings or Nolan North, but Josh Gilman plays a solid deadpan snarker in Mike Thorton. He might not be an emotional fellow, but Thorton is never short a one-liner and his delivery often got real laughs from this reviewer.

Characters will react to a staggering number of choices you make throughout the game, and this is a large part of what makes Alpha Protocol work.  Everybody has more to them than meets the eye, and the game never cheats when someone you trusted suddenly pulls a gun on you. Their disposition towards you matters throughout the game; crack a guy’s skull and he’ll tell you what you want to know, but his friends will double up on security in the next mission. Likewise, do your homework and read someone’s dossier carefully, and you’ll know they’re not the real killer when they’re at your mercy, or you can needle them into fighting to the death.

Strong characters and presentation help take the otherwise typical plot and elevate it to another key point in the game’s favor. At first, characters seem bound by stereotypes and first impressions, and your agency cohorts spend a little too much time articulating gameplay elements aloud. However, once Thorton makes a name for himself and things start happening, the quality of the storytelling ramps up considerably. Major spy operations start coming together, like an excellent hotel sting in Taipei where you coordinate efforts with your local contacts to get information quietly. Even boss villains aren’t always shooting gallery targets, and appeals to their better angels – and yours – may change the nature of the game.

The plot still isn’t perfect, given the timed response system isn’t always clear on what your options are. Case in point, selecting “proposition” when discussing a business proposal caused Thorton to crack a joke, which the other party didn’t like. You will occasionally see a dialog loop, with a character telling you something twice. There are also plot holes and other issues, like in Rome where a choice of objective in the final mission doesn’t seem to matter; both lead to roughly the same outcome, which is odd since they’re drastically different on paper. Some scenes just look funny when Thorton wears full combat gear and weapons into public. And despite what Thorton’s boss might tell you, it’s not always an option to end a conversation abruptly or slam the guy’s head into a desk until he gets to the point. They really need to map that to a button someday.

METAL GEAR?! Not quite, but that’s no excuse not to blow it up.

The whole package has a weird half-serious, half-silly feel to it, like the game never really develops a strong identity of its own. At times it pulls toward the Bourne movies, at others Bond villain nonsense or straight-up Rambo. And yet, if I’m honest, the first thing I did when I finished was start the game up again to see what would happen if I did this instead of that. The battle with the eighties cokefiend, mentioned a few paragraphs ago, was indeed frustrating.  It was also highly entertaining, and the boss himself had a lot of personality, right down to his extremely loud attire.  When it was all done, I wasn’t even mad.  I settled for bribe money, and like so many other choices it wound up having an impact in the very next mission.

This isn’t even touching on some of the game’s best moments, like dealing with the enigmatic-but-honest Albatross or the likeably loony Steven Heck. There is just too much to cover, and in spite of the reasonable running time – a thorough playthrough will clock around 25-30 hours – the game has enough character content to keep several playthroughs interesting. You can turn the whole conspiracy on its head, befriending everybody from the bottom up – where certain women are concerned, put innuendo-friendly quote marks around “befriending”  – or you can start shooting and not stop until you’re out of bad guys. There are very big and very consequential choices to be made, and while the plot may stumble and the gameplay will trip and fall on its face, there is still something deeply compelling about what Obsidian was trying to do here.

Paired with better, more consistent combat and gameplay, Alpha Protocol could have been a milestone. If you’re waiting for a game to accurately represent real spycraft, or even the next Mass Effect, then Alpha Protocol won’t satisfy. But if you can grit your teeth and push through some annoying gameplay, if you can forgive the game for making a bad first impression, then you may find something really special on the inside. It’s a game that gets better once you’ve figured out its eccentricities, which will do you no good the first time around. And yet, with the memory of real choice and consequence fresh on your mind, you might be ready for more the second you’re done.

This game was played to completion and reviewed using a retail copy.

The story begins, as RPGs so often do, with a great evil terrorizing the land. Not surprisingly, a hero emerged from the populace to save the world with the help of six sages, each carrying an orb. The hero was unable to kill the monster plaguing the world, but he was able to seal its power within a dark orb. Naturally, a period of peace and prosperity followed, and many people visited the kingdom of Dotnia to see the home of the great hero, but over time, people stopped coming to see to the castle. This lack of tourism greatly worried the current king, so in his infinite wisdom, he declared that nobody cared about 2D worlds anymore. From that point on, Dotnia would be in 3D. Overnight, the world literally sprung up, but somewhere in all the excitement, the dark orb was stolen. So once again, the kingdom of Dotnia is in peril. As luck would have it, the player happens to be a descendant of the hero of legend and is up to the task of saving the world.

Some would call 3D Dot Game Heroes a Zelda clone or even go so far as to call it a rip off. Clearly these people have not played the game. It is very similar to Zelda, but that is for a very good reason; 3D Dot Game Heroes is an homage to not just Zelda, but also to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. The game combines many of the gameplay elements of Zelda with a graphical style similar to Dragon Quest. Throw in some humor and copious amounts of references to the source material, and you start to see that the developers are paying loving tribute to the games of yesteryear. Take for instance a man who cannot decide whether he should marry his childhood friend or the daughter of a wealthy family. He confides that he’s leaning toward the wealthy girl, but only because she has a better spell set. People that have played Dragon Quest V will immediately get the reference and get a pretty good laugh out of it. Other games also get a nod or two; players of Atlus’ Demon’s Souls may relate to a girl wanting to trade some “Demon” game because it is too hard.

I call it The Compensator.

Another way that 3D Dot Game Heroes harkens back to Dragon Quest is in its main character and his resemblance to Erdrick. But if you don’t like that, feel free to play another character. Perhaps you’d like to be a ninja. Or maybe you like many of the enemy models better. Or if none of those suit your fancy, why not play such characters as Santa, a car, or a shark that somehow swims in the earth and surfaces to attack. There are dozens of character models to choose from, but if none suit your fancy, the game invites you to create your own or modify an existing one. I chose to pallate swap the main character’s armor from blue to a much cooler looking orange.

Combat in the game will be familiar to anyone that has played the Legend of Zelda. The game takes place roughly in a ¾ perspective where your chosen protagonist walks around fighting the many monsters you find with your sword, shield, and one equipped subweapon. The major difference between Zelda and 3D Dot Game Heroes is that in Zelda, when you have full health, your sword is stronger and may possibly shoot beams. In 3D Dot Game Heroes, at full health, your sword is more powerful, and it might also shoot beams. Oh, and your sword will be huge, possibly as large as about fifty percent of the screen. This tweak on the gameplay is huge, no pun intended. While you have full health, you are essentially invincible, but when you get hit, you must struggle to either get back to full health or even stay alive. As such, you will die, and it will happen frequently. And since you restart with full health after death, you will sometimes die on purpose because it’s easier to die than get the necessary health apples, which serve as a convenient replacement for hearts.

As mentioned before, you will also have several subweapons, many of which will be immediately familiar. Classics like a boomerang and a bow and arrow are among the first things you will collect. You will also get a new magic spell after finishing each dungeon, and several will be critical to finishing the game. For instance, one spell reflects magical attacks and is the only way to defeat the wizrobe-like enemies. Another spell freezes the room, which allows you to kill difficult enemies in a single strike.

Much like a Zelda game, 3D Dot Game Heroes is filled with dungeons. There are seven main dungeons of increasing difficulty and complexity. Dungeon difficulty is rather well balanced, with later dungeons feeling appropriately more dangerous without becoming impossible. Apart from managing the above-mentioned sword powerup through your health, dungeon combat won’t give too many players pause. That said, dungeons do occasionally mix things up with the odd puzzle or two.

At the end of every dungeon is a big boss, and most of the fights are pretty epic and satisfyingly difficult. Most bosses will require several attempts before you can win the fight, and with the exception of one particularly easy boss near the end, the difficulty scales nicely. The boss fights are made even more interesting if you wish to enter them into the bestiary, which is done by physically hitting enemies with the book a set number of times to book them. Since the bestiary resembles a very small sword, it takes a lot of skill to get the necessary hits to add the boss to your book. A trophy awaits those who fill the bestiary to the brim, though dedicated players may take on the challenge simply because it’s there.

Little did the hero know, but he was in the presence of another hero. Yes, he was talking to Captain Obvious.

Graphically, the game is hard to grade. Despite the fact that this game is on the PS3, you won’t be seeing anything like the visuals from recent hits like Final Fantasy XIII. That said, the graphics work very well in their odd little way. In the world of Dotnia, everything really is comprised of block-like pixels. When you kill enemies or smash pots, these blocks scatter everywhere. There are also some pretty impressive lighting effects. When you light dark rooms with a candle, everything casts appropriate shadows. A lot of effort went into making the world cohesive and really make the 8-bit in 3D graphics work.

Not only is the game an homage to the 8-bit games from the NES, but the music is very similar as well. The data selection screen sounds a lot like the ones from Dragon Quest, and the main overworld map is reminiscent of the Legend of Zelda. In the end, the music ends up being pretty catchy, and you will probably find yourself humming along to the midi tunes. The game stays true to its pseudo 8-bit roots, including the sound effects and lack of voice acting.

Completing the game will take anywhere from 15-35 hours depending on how many side quests you go for and how much time you spend exploring. Dotnia is built on a grid of screens similar to The Legend of Zelda, and there are many hidden caves, bombable walls, and hookshot posts to find hidden life shards or chests. There are also many mini-games to play, including a particularly fun tower defense game where you build and upgrade towers to fight streams of monsters that follow a set path. Getting a perfect finish requires a lot of strategy. Once you finish the game, there is also a New Game+ option that allows you to keep any swords you collected for subsequent trips through the game.

Despite all the positives about the game, there are two minor grievances that need to be discussed. For one, the game’s camera angle makes some of the dungeons more difficult than they need to be because it slightly obscures the bottom of the screen. This issue is very minor, but it bears mention. Also, there is a lot of time-sensitive content in the game. It is very easy to miss a lot of side quests without the assistance of a guide of some sort. In order to make sure you don’t miss anything, you really have to check every person in every town after each dungeon to see if any new quests have opened up. Most quests will vanish after the next dungeon is completed, so the window is short. Simply allowing quests to be completed at any time after certain points would have remedied this issue.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun, especially if you’ve had a lot of experience with the games that much of the parody and jokes come from. Even without prior experience, anyone that enjoyed playing the 2D Zelda games will find a lot to like. Its masterful blend of quirky humor and solid game mechanics makes 3D Dot Game Heroes an excellent addition to anyone that has been playing games since the ’80s.

The story, like many of tri-Ace’s offerings, is hit and miss. As described above, the premise and world design are incredibly interesting, and the dialogue itself is very well written. Taking a cue from Radiata Stories, humor is a large part of Resonance of Fate, with characters often exchanging hilarious one-liners even in battle. Despite that, the story has a dark edge to it, which becomes more apparent the longer it goes on.

Unfortunately, exposition is a serious problem. There often is no context given to what is happening (especially regarding the ending, a serious crime against nature), character backgrounds are left vague, and completely illogical events happen quite often. For example, one mission has you infiltrating a decrepit city under reconstruction, and despite your killing a number of a high ranking official’s guards, nobody seems to care afterward.

Hero Action!

The battle system, similar to previous tri-Ace offering Valkyrie Profile 2, is a hybrid of real-time and turn based; all characters have an Action Gauge that drains when moving or charging up for an attack, and enemies move when you do, so a certain amount of strategy is required when deciding on a plan of action. Resonance of Fate however, features a number of improvements to this system. Noted above, attacks are chargeable, and the longer you charge an attack the more your attack strength increases.

HP damage is divided into two different types: Scratch Damage and Direct Damage. The former is the most common you will encounter. While Scratch Damage does no actual harm to an enemy, filling its HP gauge with such damage enables you to instantly kill it with a Direct Damage attack. Conversely, when your HP gauge is filled with such damage, you lose Bezels from the Hero Gauge. Speaking of which, the Hero Gauge serves a dual purpose in combat. As long as you have at least one full Bezel in the gauge, losing all your HP will not kill you. When you run out however, you enter Critical Condition, where your characters are half as effective in combat and losing all your HP results in a game over. Secondly are Hero Actions, which use one Bezel from the gauge in exchange for an invincible super attack that can span the battle area. The Hero Gauge is restored by eliminating the HP of an enemy, or the gauge of one of its parts. Worth remembering is the ability to break HP gauges into smaller segments, thus making it much easier to regenerate Bezels. All in all, the strategic balancing act involved in the battle system makes it a highly enjoyable affair.

Characters are able to equip three different kinds of weapons: hand guns (which do Direct Damage and break HP gauges), machine guns (which only do Scratch Damage), and grenades (like handguns, only better). A character’s level is based on the average of their experience with these three weapon types. Focusing exclusively on one weapon is thus not recommended, as leveling goes much slower the more uneven your weapon proficiency is. The ability to customize these weapons with various parts is also included. These parts affect various aspects of a weapon, such as charge speed and magazine size. Obtaining them is sometimes as easy as buying them in a store, although the more beneficial parts require visits to the tinkerer, who creates items from spare parts you pick up from dead enemies or from scrapping other items.

These are not Leanne’s natural eye and hair colors.

Similar to Radiata Stories, Resonance of Fate follows a mission based system, with both the main plotline and side quests being given as missions for the main characters to complete from people all across Basel. Basel itself is laid out over grids spanning many floors. To progress through the game, one uses an item called an Energy Hex to clear these grids for travel. Opening grids has the bonus of occasionally gifting the player with items, including Bezel shards for the Hero Gauge, clothing, and ammo. Being a tri-Ace title, Resonance of Fate naturally has post-game content, although it is limited to just one fairly short dungeon.

Graphically, Resonance of Fate delivers. Making good use of a more realistic style (although still anime influenced) than their previous efforts, the graphics wonderfully depict the tower of Basel. Gears are an ever present sight even in towns, and the further down the structure you go, the worse the living conditions. Particularly well done is the lowest city on the totem pole, a place literally built around a giant junk pile. Like in Star Ocean: The Last Hope, the lighting is especially impressive, to the point where dust motes are visible in sunbeams. One notable feature is the ability to change character outfits. A large variety of clothing is available, along with the option to change eye and hair color. Needless to say, anyone who’s as big a dork as I am will spend an inordinate amount of time playing with this mechanic.

As I noted in my previous review, one thing that will never change about tri-Ace is their inability to provide good interaction. To their credit, they have finally provided a pause button this time around, and it can be used during all cutscenes. To their discredit, the convoluted gameplay mechanics are introduced in a rush right at the beginning of the game, giving no time for the player to adjust. Also notable is a difficult storyline boss that limits you to one town and weak enemies, thus preventing decent leveling and item gathering. A battle retry option is available, but it costs money, which is fairly precious to begin with. In dungeons, you cannot access your menu at all, eliminating any chance of switching equipment on the fly.

Musically, this is Motoi Sakuraba at his best. His typical style that utilizes lots of synth instruments and electric guitar fits the setting of the game very well, with the exception of the synth organ, which thankfully is not used very much. Notable is the battle music changing whenever you go into Hero Mode. Voice acting is similarly top notch, with only one minor character turning in an average performance.

In the end, Resonance of Fate is your average tri-Ace game, with all the pros and cons therein. As such, your ability to enjoy this product will likely hinge on your enjoyment of the gameplay and humor contained within. If the devil is in the details, then the hit and miss story and bad interaction will turn you off. I once again belong to the former group.

Played to completion using a retail copy purchased by the reviewer.

No discipline is flawless. At one level or another, we are all human, defective, stained with the deepest seeds of doubt and regret, shame and anger. But we can try, dammit. We can try. And this game, despite some technical flaws, tries. Dammit.

Nippon-Ichi have gone out on a limb in their attempt to bring this, the fifth installment in the Sakura Taisen series, to American audiences. As Lt. Shinjiro Taiga, nephew of… some guy from the earlier games, you’re sent to a very Steampunky 1928 New York City to assist in the operations of the Star Division. Upon arrival…

Y’know, I could go into more of the plot here, but frankly the game does it better than I ever could. There’s a lot of plot. This is, after all, very solidly in the “visual novel” genre. Most of the time. Suffice it to say, this particular imagining of 1928 New York has no difficulty rationalizing giant robots, air travel, cellular telecommunications, or digital photography. Soon you’re shooting enemy mecha out of the sky and restoring peace to the city after a host of demonic attacks.

Part giant-robot tactical combat sim…

Supporting you in these missions are the members of the New York Combat Revue, a cleverly-concealed fighting force in the guise of a Broadway theater troupe. Your interactions with these members, all of them lovely young women (we think), are facilitated by a series of multiple-choice text responses… most of the time. In a unique twist, your responses are timed; woe betide the indecisive. Or not. Timing out is always an option, and can lead to its own sequences of events. While the new-standard Large Character Shots above said boxes are well-rendered in their own right, Sakura Wars isn’t afraid to mix it up every once in a while by including lip-flap animation on what would normally be an static insert image. It’s a refreshing change of pace, and certainly serves to develop what would be standard RPG fare into something much more… animated, for lack of a better word.

Interspersed with those standard text responses are innovations such as the Analog response box, where you’re given one sentiment to reply with, but can vary its emphasis from a glorious battle cry to a low whisper. Also featuring in more skill-intensive sections of the narrative are events which challenge the player to accomplish a series of button presses or rotations in a set time, the success of which determines Shin’s aptitude at the task. All these serve to branch the story out in true visual-novel fashion, and to influence the good graces of the ladies on your team.

Now, in a normal dating sim, that’d be the crux of the mechanics. You make choices, influence people, and hope to date one of them. However, introduce giant robots into the mix, and you get to have more fun. The relationships you build influence the course of battle, as friendlier pairs team up for more effective Joint Attacks, and can sometimes negate enemy offensives. As such, it’s not enough for you to manage Shin Protagonist’s image and standing in the group, you must also concern yourself with the intrapersonal dynamics of the team, as well. Likewise, performance in combat does influence opinion outside of combat; nothing says “Let’s be friends!” like a timely heal or cooperative assault.

Part dating-sim-style visual novel. All New York.

I originally found the combat to be rather hand-wavey and simple, having already familiarized myself with much more in-depth offerings like the Front Mission series. While the fight scenes can be a bit of a cakewalk in the early game, by the last couple chapters it becomes crucial to use every bit of firepower in your arsenal. Further, the flavor of the game changes significantly between the terrestrial and aerial combat encounters, while some fights even hybridize the two, offering multiple fronts for a single operation. This game changed my mind. I underestimated it, I paid for my hubris, and I was rewarded with an enjoyable tactical experience.

That said, the combat shows a number of the technical flaws which keep Sakura Wars from achieving greatness. In particularly explosive scenes – and, for that matter, in a couple parts of the game outside of combat – the stereo sound has holes you could drive a giant robot of death through. Occasionally, your attacks will land completely silently. (This tends to occur most commonly in aerial skirmishes.) Further, particularly in later boss attacks, the video can lag quite horribly, causing massive A/V sync issues and, in particularly egregious cases, can leave your Wiimote whirring provocatively for 10 seconds at a time, with absolutely nothing happening on the screen. Even in the “adventure” segments of the game, sometimes a vocal segment will be completely lost, drowned out by overzealous background music.

It’s not bad background music, mind. Lots of smooth, slow jazz, with Japanese influences in just the right places. (Though the gestalt may be a little MIDI-heavy for a period piece.) And the English dub, courtesy of our friends over at Bang-Zoom, is capable, if a bit overacted at times. (It was refreshing to hear a Texan accent that was not being used to approximate Kansai dialect.) The character who sounded like a Mexican 9-year-old straight off of Sesame Street… was meant to sound like a Mexican 9-year-old. Could this be an echo of the uncanny valley? One immediately notices how “off” the lip-flaps in the more cinematic shots… but, were this anime, would we really notice?

That brings us to the crux of it. The “game,” if one can call it that, is much better understood as a 7-episode anime series, with all the schmaltzy plot, cheesy musical numbers, and feel-good endings one would expect from an early-to-mid-90′s giant robot show. The difference is that you, Joe McPlayer, get to direct sections of the character development, and conduct the battle segments as you see fit.

… That’s the mechanical side of it, at least. However, there’s a large part of this game that isn’t mechanical at all. Perhaps because of the limited “gameplay,” a huge part of this game is about understanding the stories of these people, coming together in this city. I realize it’s rather divorced from what most people are looking for in something that purports to be a tactical RPG… but in this case, it’s the truth. This isn’t so much a game with a story, it’s a story with game-like mechanics. If you’re just looking for the challenge, you’re going to end up missing what is, in truth, a fantastic narrative, one which changes as you play it and makes you want to go back and try things again… and again. It’s been murder on me to actually try to get this review out in a timely fashion; I keep wanting to go back and play one more scenario.

There’s a lot of joy in this game. There has to be. It’s a game about saving New York, using giant robots and the power of musical theater. It’s told in the style of admittedly-retro anime. It’s about as campy as you can possibly get without attracting the ire of Fred Phelps. (Well, aside from the crossdressing scenes. Move over, Miss Cloud! Peppermint’s taking over New York!) This game manages to be greater than the sum of its parts by achieving a truly harmonic balance. Perhaps it’s because it’s designed, much like the theater troupe it portrays, to lift hearts and weary spirits.

To quote Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters, exclaiming from the top of Central Park West after banishing Zuul and defeating the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man…

“I love this town!”

Played to completion using a copy provided by the publisher.

In the normal run of things, the death of an Archdemon triggers the end of a Blight, and so it seemed with Origins; the massive dragon went down and its darkspawn horde fled Ferelden and scattered. Instead of retreating underground, however, they somehow organized into small factions in the neighboring country of Amaranthine. More worrying are rumors that some now show signs of intelligence, and the point is driven home with a surprise attack on the new Grey Warden fortress at Vigil’s Keep. As the resident Grey Warden who just happens to stroll in during the attack, it’s on you to rally the defenders, investigate this resurgence of darkspawn, and work with the nobility of Amaranthine to secure the region. As you might expect coming from Origins, things don’t quite stay that simple for long, and suffice it to say the darkspawn threat is not as straightforward as it may first appear.

Nothing major has changed about the interface or the gameplay, though there are additions: extra skill trees for core classes and weapons, new subclasses, and the ability to make your own runes as a trainable worldskill. Along with new items such as stamina potions, the expansion content rounds out the gameplay in sensible ways, filling in gaps from Origins. One of the rogue kits makes for a viable front-line fighter, and new mage abilities provide ever more exotic means of crowd control. Movement and interaction use the same keyboard and mouse setup to control both character and camera, and overall there’s nothing new here to trip up returning players. You have the option of importing your Warden from Origins or starting one from scratch, and if you import some of your choices will carry over, albeit in fairly non-critical ways.

Our crew bravely battles the Withered, presumably just a poor darkspawn wizard with a lisp.

Tactics still take time to set up right, but your team comes with competent settings by default and can generally hold their own without constant input. Obviously the darkspawn are again your main opponents, though Awakening has a few new critters to throw your way. Of particular note are the disgusting, grub-like Children, who evolve throughout the story and become progressively more dangerous. New varieties of ogre, treant, and one extremely cool optional dragon will test your mettle, and you’re less likely to be forced into unfair odds; or at least, you’ll have more options available for large groups of enemies. One welcome change is having a more balanced party right off the bat, as you can recruit a mage during the intro at Vigil’s Keep, and a thief shortly afterward.

Speaking of the story, Awakening is structured in a very similar fashion to Origins, if more compact. After the intro, the plot opens up to three key objectives, to be tackled in any order. In between these you’ll be called to settle matters at the keep, often settling disputes between the nobility who now answer to you. As with Origins, Awakening doesn’t shy away from giving you tough calls with long-term consequences. To name one, the decision of where to deploy your small number of soldiers – to the farmland, trade routes, or the capital city – will matter throughout the game, and it won’t be the only judgment call you’ll have to make with limited information. Right down to the finale, your actions will have unintended consequences, and this is by far one of Awakening‘s strongest points.

With a new story comes new characters, and once again BioWare has lined up a pack of likable characters with excellent banter. Although a few faces from Origins make brief appearances, the only returning party member that stays is Oghren. Love him or hate him, Dwarven Jay Blum is as quotable as ever (“Spectaculous!” “That’s not a word.” “It is now!”). The newcomers vary wildly in personality, each standing out in their own way. On the tame end are an unassuming thief with an axe to grind against you – especially if you’re of human noble origin – and an elven mage on the hunt for her sister. More eccentric ones include an irreverent apostate who loves cats, an irrepressably cheerful dwarven legionnaire, and a man who becomes a Grey Warden on an interesting technicality. They can develop in drastically different ways depending on how you treat them, and half the fun is finding out what really makes them tick.

Participants in the Spontaneous Combustion Game argue about who started burning first. Billy Joel is being summoned to mediate the dispute.

This being the same graphics engine, Awakening has few visible upgrades over Origins. That said, major quest areas are excellently designed; an old dwarven citadel keeps things interesting by providing flashbacks and snippets of life before a darkspawn invasion, and an abandoned village tells an eerie tale as it blends reality and the spirit world known as the Fade. Vigil’s Keep grows more lively and fortified as you upgrade it, and Mass Effect 2 players will find this aspect very familiar, minus the whole strip-mining of planets thing. The city of Amaranthine is slightly larger and busier than the Denerim marketplace from Origins, but you only see one section and it still feels a tad small. Side areas are perhaps reused too often, and blood splatter still looks silly, but those aside the visuals are handled as well as in Origins; the more going on, the better it looks. Of course, expect the occasional battle-effect-during-dialogue silliness to rear its ugly head, as evidenced in the screenshot to the right.

Audio is as strong a standout as ever, largely due to superb acting and writing by which BioWare often distinguishes itself. Apart from returning actors, a handful of familiar voices show up here and there, each doing credit to their roles; Baldur’s Gate veterans won’t have much trouble picking out Grey DeLisle (Viconia) as Velanna, the elf mage, and there’s no mistaking Robin Sachs (Zaeed from Mass Effect 2) as Varel, the steward of Vigil’s Keep. The new additions to the cast easily hold their own as well. An early standout is Anders, the cat-loving human mage who’s on the run from the Chantry but otherwise a remarkably cheerful fellow. Every minute of dialogue of his with an adopted cat threatens to steal the show, illustrating that a certain XKCD strip about the correlation between proximity to a cat and talking like a child holds true even in fantasy. The charming Sigrun happily steals it back, clearly playing with the image of dwarven Dead Legionnaires as stodgy, serious types who never have any fun.

Regrettably, a broad range of small but numerous technical issues dot the game, some more persistent than others. For instance, two characters joined and immediately had their approval maxed out. Along similar lines, most gifts gave identical approval boosts regardless of who they were given to. One character’s personal quest only appears in a random encounter, yet due to a strange glitch I was unable to trigger it normally. A quest in the city stayed available even after a parallel mission led me to kill the quest giver. Character importation, and specifically the choices you made in Origins, can have the occasional hiccup, as you can draw from in-progress saves and the game may fill in the blanks if your Warden wasn’t that far along. Interesting side note, booting the game up to fact-check this caused a full lockup that required a hard reset. And if you happened to be wearing DLC armor at the time, you may feel a slight draft upon startup. These are relatively minor issues, to be sure, but issues nonetheless.

All right guys, you know what to do: ignore the main quest and help random people on the street with their shopping lists.

Other problems are less defensible. There is little variety in your team’s personal quests. Most consist of either going to the city and talking to someone or waiting for them to talk to you. Some quests have great potential but end flatly, particularly a donation box for “Blight Orfans” that is quite obviously beer money and prank supplies for a pair of drunken idiots. Although the quest line is amusing, nothing interesting happens when you clear the last request. You’ll put certain party members through the Joining to make them official Grey Wardens, but it’s handled carelessly, and with one early exception it’s quite obvious that none of your party is in any danger. A late-game placement of a dragon fight is rather sudden as the thing just drops right on top of you without warning, like the game felt the need to cram one in at the last minute.

Awakening‘s running time, a comparably slim twelve to fifteen hours to do everything, is a mixed blessing. On the upside, dungeons don’t run as long and sidequests don’t take as much time. The story is kept rolling and individual sequences feel much more efficient. With the exception of Dragon Out of Nowhere, boss fights are fun, engaging, and well integrated, particularly the aforementioned optional dragon fight. On the downside, less playtime means less time spent with the characters and the story. By the time you’ve rounded up a full party, the game’s almost over. There are no romance options, and certain conversations will only trigger by observing easy-to-miss bits of scenery or checking into Vigil’s Keep regularly. Perhaps most jarring is the game jumps straight to epilogues after killing the final boss, skipping any denouement — a letdown after one particularly grim and well-executed choice that results in one of two very different outcomes.

In spite or perhaps because of all that’s been said so far, the decision to pick up Awakening is fairly cut-and-dry. Those who liked Origins and were chomping at the bit for a second playthrough before the credits finished rolling probably have this already. Those turned off by the samey sidequests and endless dungeons may find Awakening more forgiving, if only because the expansion keeps a closer eye on the clock. However, anybody curious about out how their decisions in Origins changed things may be somewhat let down until a proper sequel. Still, Awakening is a respectable follow-up to Origins and manages to capture a lot of what made it special in the first place. It’s not as polished as one might hope, but on the whole it hits the right notes: a compelling plot, meaningful choices, and enjoyable characters.

Consider this an appetizer for the next full Dragon Age. Dust off your Warden, gather your party, and venture forth.

This game was played to completion and reviewed using a retail copy.

The plot of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is a little unusual for the series. Set outside of Japan for the first time in the series, Strange Journey takes place in Antarctica where a strange phenomenon known as the Schwartzwelt is gobbling up land at a frightening place. The player takes charge of a member of the United Nations task force sent to investigate this bizarre phenomenon, which threatens to absorb the entire planet. In short order, the player is drawn into the Schwartzwelt, thrown into the middle of a vast conflict between demonic invaders and angelic interlopers, and tasked with the seemingly insurmountable challenge of saving the world and somehow getting home. Though there aren’t quite as many paths open to the player as there were in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Strange Journey does a very solid job of allowing players a free hand with their own fate.

The dual-screen setup organizes information quite well, but Strange Journey doesn’t have many options for direct touch screen control.

The plot works both with themes that are familiar to the series — the idea of a multi-sided conflict which the player must pick a side in, with widespread moral ambiguity allowing the player to pick which side they think is right — as well as many themes that are not. For example, large parts of the game can be read as an indictment of humanity and a roll call of its sins. The Schwartzwelt holds demonic constructs which mimic and mock events in the human world. In essence, the Schwartzwelt shows humanity’s worst parts — our careless destruction, our lust for war, our mindless consumption — and uses them as weapons against us. But there’s always a note of hope buried. Whichever path the player chooses, it shows humanity trying to come to grips with its problems, and trying to move forward. On the whole, the plot is exceptionally well executed with well-developed characters, a central theme that really hits home, and a sense of tension that simply never lets up.

As with many Shin Megami Tensei games, a lot of weight is placed on alignments and elementals, but Strange Journey takes this one step further. Rather than the Press Turn system of Nocturne, Strange Journey uses the Alignment Assist system. The system works by allowing all party members of the same alignment to execute a combined attack when one character hits an enemy’s elemental weakness. This system has some easily recognizable positives and negatives. To begin with, the Alignment Assist system is a bit more balanced than the Press Turn system. It’s a lot harder for a party of demons to wipe the player out simply because they ambushed the player and guessed the right element, resulting in an eight-turn beatdown. On the other hand, since the Alignment Assist system is only available to players, the player has a distinct and easily exploitable advantage over monsters, which makes the game as a whole a little less challenging. On the whole, the Alignment Assist system isn’t quite as strategically interesting as the Press Turn system was, though it is a lot more player-friendly.

One addition to the game which doesn’t quite fit is the password system. It’s a fairly simple system; upon request, the game will output a password for any demon in a player’s Demonic Compendium, allowing others to input the password and add that demon to their own Compendium. Essentially, it’s a demon trading system. The password system is an unusual turn for the series, and one that has some interesting potential, but the way it’s used in Strange Journey is a huge problem for the game’s balance. To begin with, it’s pretty easy to get demons with game-breaking skills at a low enough level for new players to use, effectively cracking the game’s balance right from the start. Furthermore, a major part of the Fusion process involves Demon Sources, which can add massively powerful and useful skills to a demon but are single-use only. By using the password system, a player can create a powerful demon with a long list of skills, output its password, reset the game, and then input the password. The player can now re-use the Source but still keep the new demon, all at the cost of a few Macca.

But perhaps the biggest problem with the password system is the trouble it causes for suspension of disbelief. Strange Journey takes place in an sequestered area with only a few people, with the idea of conflict between ideals and the struggle of isolated and threatened humans in a harsh environment forming some of the game’s major themes. Bluntly put, the idea of large groups of players sharing allies over the internet simply doesn’t work here. It actively runs counter to the ideas being presented in the story.

For a long time, Shin Megami Tensei games have been plagued by interface issues. Over the last couple entries, this has largely been reduced to a handful of annoying twitches in the way menus are set up, and a few bothersome holdovers. One of these — the need to exit and re-enter the Demon Fusion menu in order to reshuffle the skills a new demon will learn — has largely been taken care of, though not in a terribly satisfactory way. For the most part, the skills a new demon will learn are now fixed; usually only one or two very specific skills are carried over. This was probably to encourage players to make the most of Demon Sources, which do allow for skill reshuffling. The end result is that demons fused without Sources tend to be much less useful than those with Sources, though whether or not this was intentional is unclear. This, at least, doesn’t seem to cause any major balance issues, though the lack of control over what skills demons will learn is still a bit of a frustration.

As with some recent games in the Shin Megami Tensei line, Strange Journey features longtime series composer Shoji Meguro trying something a little new. This time, Mr. Meguro goes for the heavy-handed doom and gloom classical music, heavy on the ominous Latin chanting. The style is very unusual for Mr. Meguro, and there are times when his lack of comfort in this particular genre is fairly obvious. By and large the soundtrack is solid, and there are some places where it works quite well, but more or less the entire soundtrack uses deep Latin chanting in some form or another, meaning the tracks tend to bleed together.

The game offers a number of achivements. It’s a nice, if pointless touch.

Being on a less technically advanced system, the visuals of Strange Journey are understandably a bit of a step down from those of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Strange Journey does bring a similar sensibility to the table where visuals are concerned, though where Nocturne opted for slick neon and deep black, Strange Journey tends towards earth tones and a more grotesque style of design. The slickness of Nocturne does rear its head every now and then, particularly in boss design, but for the most part, Strange Journey uses a rougher, cruder style. This actually fits Strange Journey a bit better, synching up well with the terrible things on display in the Schwartzwelt. Ultimately, the visual style does what visuals are supposed to do best: increase the game’s impact.

Due in large part to the password system, Strange Journey simply isn’t as tough as some other games in the series. Make no mistake, this is still a Shin Megami Tensei game; it will gleefully punish a lack of preparedness, and it loves throwing the player curveballs whenever possible. But the player’s ability to produce password demons that are well above what should be available to them at any given time goes a long way towards breaking this balance. This is less pronounced towards the very end of the game as the difficulty level starts to really ramp up, but for most of the player’s journey, password demons represent a hand delivered, gold embossed, engraved invitation to break the game’s balance.

In the end, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is an excellent game and a solid addition to the mainline series. Though its underlying systems are a bit less deep than the more complex mechanics of Nocturne, and players should probably ignore the password system on the basis that it breaks the game balance at every opportunity, Strange Journey sports a solid visual style, an exceptional level of character building options, and a story with strong characters and central themes that really hit home.

This game was played to completion and reviewed using a retail copy.

Fresh out of training, the player isn’t ready, physically or mentally, to face the Dragon Knight that has appeared, so the hero’s path takes them away from their fellow Slayers. Oddly enough, this actually leads to some more interesting plot points than one might expect, and that’s saying a lot considering the alternative would be an epic battle with a Dragon Knight. Much of the game is interesting and fairly well-written, especially some of the random sidequests. Many portions are quite amusing as well, thanks to a healthy sense of humor largely present in sidequests, books, and little bits of text scattered about, not to mention the main quest to a lesser extent. The biggest disappointment is that choices have very little consequence compared to similar games, and there’s almost no freedom when it comes to the main quest. Unfortunately, some key scenes are pulled off rather poorly. Vital portions of the story that should be very interesting can come off as anti-climactic, especially the ending. These poorly executed sequences add up and hurt what could have been a much better story.

Combat is basically divided into three types: melee, ranged, and magic. Most enemies early on have only one specialty, but most powerful foes have a wider range of talents, not to mention special skills. It may seem simple at first, but the ability to dodge and take on multiple enemies of various types at once, not to mention a fair bit of character customization and a wide range of skills help to vary combat a bit. By the end of the game, it’s hard to avoid feeling like one particular set of enemy types hasn’t been fought a few dozen times before, but equipment enchantments, charms, item-creation through alchemy, customizable summons, and some pretty serious skill customization go a long way to keep things somewhat fresh. Eventually, a dragon form will become available, along with some large-scale battles. Though dragon battles never come close to the level of customization that human battles do, and thus get a little stale more quickly, they still add a fair bit of extra variety.

Backing up the gameplay are controls and menus that get the job done for the most part, at least as far as simple tasks are concerned, but there are some pretty glaring issues as well. Platforming sections are particularly annoying. It’s possible to hotkey skills and items, which is certainly quite convenient, but many of the hotkey options are on the 360′s D-pad, which is rather imprecise, so there are fewer viable heat-of-the-battle options for important skills and items than there might seem at first, unless the player doesn’t mind accidentally un-summoning their creature instead of using a potion, for example. Out of battle, the interface is even worse. Map markers are few and barely helpful since they only show up on the mini-compass if the player is practically right on top of them. Inventory management is a nightmare before the battle tower is unlocked, and it’s still a tad bit more difficult than it should be to compare equipment. On the upside, the dragon form controls very intuitively and smoothly.

Although the player has control over difficulty, even the easiest of settings can be quite difficult in places and vice versa. The reason for this is that a difference in level between player and enemy has a far more profound effect on damage given and taken than anything else. This is compounded with the fact that, except in a few rare cases, enemies do not respawn and the player will be out-leveled for most of the game, especially if they use mind-reading a lot. Late in the game, the opposite is true. The huge number of powerful enemies in optional dungeons may cause problems at first, but the sheer number of them can result in the player gaining enough levels to take next-to-no damage from regular enemies.

Perhaps one of the best things Divinity II does is reward the player for taking the time to explore each area the story takes them to. This comes not only in the form of treasure, but also in other well-hidden secrets, items that can alter the way quests play out in interesting ways, and some things that are just in there to be amusing. Most areas are extremely detailed and offer bonuses to those who take the time to comb every square inch, and though there are a few places that are a tad spare in comparison, these are rare.

With all that exploring, one would hope for some impressive environments to traverse. Visually, the world of Divinity II is fairly pretty at first glance, but a few major issues quickly become apparent. The most prevalent of these problems is a somewhat low framerate which plagues the game from beginning to end, including the more impressive cutscenes. Possibly related to this, although far less common, is the occasional visual glitch when turning the camera which makes an otherwise smooth turn of the camera appear to “tear” the screen. Finally, characters can occasionally vanish during dialogs. For those able to look past these problems, the game does look pretty good, though it is far from being the best looking game on the 360.

On the other side of the scale, Divinity II‘s soundtrack is really quite impressive as a whole. Much of the game has fairly decent if not good music, but most of the key areas have at least one excellent score mixed in that really conveys the mood. Good voice acting and sound effects only add to the atmosphere. The only real flaw with the audio is that early areas lack variety and sometimes the background music may not play properly, though this bug is extremely rare.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis has good gameplay hurt somewhat by a below-average interface but backed up with a deceptively large world that heavily rewards exploration. The story is interesting, though decisions don’t have much impact and many key scenes come off as anti-climactic. It may not be the most technologically impressive title around, it definitely takes some time to get going, and it makes its fair share of mistakes, but there’s a decent game in there for those willing to give it a chance. Sometimes, it’s easy to tell when a game has heart behind it, and this is definitely the case with Divinity II.

The game starts off on a train while a narrator explains that the past thirteen days have been chaotic.  As the scene proceeds, we are introduced to protagonists Lightning and Sazh Kilroy.  Suddenly, Lightning springs into action and singlehandedly defeats every soldier she comes in contact with, and Sazh follows her somewhat like a lost, complaining puppy.  Naturally, the train crashes and the pair are greeted by a giant mechanical monstrosity.  After destroying it, the pair is thrown into a conflict that the player has almost no way of understanding.

This is, perhaps, the game’s greatest flaw.  Final Fantasy XIII chooses to throw everyone into a plot that has been in motion for thirteen days with zero backstory.  Instead of explaining even a little what strange terms like Fal’cie or l’cie mean, players must push forward and have the plot revealed in pieces over the span of the game.  The bulk of the story is explained by the time players reach the third or fourth of the game’s thirteen chapters, but the beginning is quite jarring.  Even a short intro text, possibly like what you see at the beginning of Final Fantasy VI would have made the beginning flow a bit better.  Regardless, once the plot gets going, it is a thrilling tale from beginning to end.  There is also an in-game encyclopedia which fills in the gaps for the player as you play, which really helps to make the game make more sense.

Where do they get off calling ME a bridezilla? THEY are the ones that brought white geese instead of the SWANS I specifically asked for.

The six playable characters are split up, and the game constantly switches between as many as three separate stories in an almost Quentin Tarantino-like fashion that happen simultaneously. This split storytelling method is seen for about the first half of the game, and much like with the plot as a whole, this makes the characterization start off kind of slowly.  Since we’re only introduced to characters for little bits at a time, it can take a while for some characters to grow on you.  In a bit of a catch 22, you finally have children in an RPG that actually act their age, which makes them much more believable.  At the same time, they act like whiny, emo, teenaged children.  Fortunately, everyone grows up a fair bit by the end of the game, so everything gets vastly better by the time the game reaches its conclusion.

As with any RPG, one of the most important features is the battle system, and this is where Final Fantasy XIII really shines.  Initially, most of the battle system is locked, but once you get to chapter 3, the battle system opens up to be one of the best and most innovative ones yet.  In all, you will only control your main character, and any support characters will act automatically, similar to the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII.  This lack of control sounds disconcerting at first, but the AI is surprisingly good.  Most times, your teammates will do exactly what you would have told them to do in the first place.  And not only that, but you can have the AI suggest actions for your main character as well. You can go with your own commands if you want, but in general, the computer is pretty smart at figuring out your best course of action.  How does the computer know what to pick?  For instance, you can scan a monster to find its weaknesses or, if you’d rather save Technique Points (TP), methodically test various attacks to find it out the old-fashioned way.  The AI will pick up on what works best and will use the most effective attacks automatically, including picking up on small details like the type of physical attacks to use; Commando units can use attacks based on strength or magic stats.

And that brings me to the most important part of the battle system: Paradigms.  Every character can have one of six roles.  Although each character will eventually gain access to all roles, everyone has three roles that they will specialize in.  Each role has its own abilities and will bestow some bonus to the party as a whole.  Commandos get a boost to attacks and help maintain Stagger chains.  Ravagers specialize in attack magic and quickly build up Stagger chains.  Medics heal and revive allies.  Synergists and Saboteurs wield stat-altering spells that help the party or hinder enemies respectively.  And finally, Sentinels are the tanks that aren’t able to dish out much damage, but they can absorb massive hits and thus protect other party members.  From these six roles, you can make up to six decks that assign a role to each member.  For instance, you might have a Paradigm with one Commando and two Ravagers to quickly stagger opponents, or you might go with something more defensive like a Medic, a Sentinel, and a Synergist.  Ultimately, it will depend upon your play style what method you prefer, though the game does skew itself toward staggering enemies as the primary strategy.  Enemies are staggered by filling up their stagger gauge, at which point it will slowly drain.  When an enemy’s stagger gauge is full, they’ll be temporarily weakened and take extra damage from attacks. They can also be launched into the air in this state, increasing the damage bonus and rendering them helpless.

So once you build your six Paradigm decks, you’re ready to begin combat.  At any time, you can switch between your six Paradigms, which will be necessary. Even though a character may have abilities from multiple roles, they can only use abilities when in that role.  So even though Vanille is an excellent mage, she cannot wield all types of magic simultaneously.  When someone is weakened, you’ll have to switch Paradigms to allow her to heal.  She’ll immediately sling some curative magic your way, and then you can immediately assume an offensive stance once again.  During boss fights, expect to have to change Paradigms frequently, sometimes every couple seconds as the needs of the battle change.

There are a few other major changes to the battle system that need to be addressed as well.  At the end of every battle, everyone is restored to full HP, including those that fell in battle.  This might make it sound like this would make the game overly easy, but it actually makes things harder.  Since you’re always going to start at full health for every battle, the developers made random battles significantly more difficult.  Expect to die.  A lot.  But unlike in other games, death comes with no penalty.  You merely restart right before the battle began, and you have full access to your Paradigm decks to change up strategies as needed.  You might also be able to ambush your opponents by sneaking up on them from behind, and if a fight is going poorly, you can restart it rather than wait for your lead character to be killed.

OK. Here’s the plan. All we need to win this fight is a couple snow speeders and MAYBE a Jedi.

And that’s the other main change to the battle system.  If your lead character dies, the fight’s over.  Though it sounds like this would be a major problem, with proper strategy, it is rarely an issue.  There is but one exception to this rule, and it is the last boss.  The last boss has an attack that cannot be blocked by equipping items, and if it is successful, it instantly KOs the target.  You could, for instance, spend nearly two hours repeatedly trying to kill the blasted boss, have it down to approximately 2% of it’s HP, have full HP yourself, and then have your game suddenly end because your main character was targeted by the instant death move.  And before you ask, yes, I am a little bitter.  In all honesty, the game mechanic works pretty well for 99.9% of the game, it’s just that the end is a little bit game breaking.  Ultimately finishing the game comes down more to luck than skill.

Another major factor that can influence the outcome of battle is the way in which you initiate the battle itself.  Enemies are visible on the world map around you, and it is possible to sneak up on them either by stealth or by using special aerosol items.  Making contact with an unawares foe starts a pre-emptive strike, which means that every enemy will be nearly staggered.  For some of the harder to kill monsters, this can mean the difference between a fight being over in 20 seconds versus a fight taking a couple minutes to finish.  This is important because the amount of experience gained depends on how quickly you win, and it can be worth the time spent restarting fights until you get that preemptive strike.  And some fights in the last third of the game may be nearly unwinnable unless you sneak up on your target first.

Once you win your fights, you earn Crystogen Points, or CP, which is this game’s version of experience points.  From about the third chapter on, you are able to progress your characters throughout their various skill trees by expending CP.  The system is very similar to Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid in that there are nodes that you activate sequentially.  Where it begins to be different is that unlike FFX, each node does not cost the same amount of CP.  In general, higher nodes cost more than lower ones do.  Also, some classes may have more expensive nodes than others.  One final difference is that every character has a unique Crystarium, even for the same class.  For example, even though Hope and Sazh both have the synergist role available from the beginning, Hope’s tree begins with skills that boost defensive abilities and Sazh’s skill tree starts off with abilities to increase damage.  Unlike earlier games in the series, the skill trees do not ultimately end up the same way, so all six characters will remain unique, even if you completely max out their Crystarium.

The other main purpose of the Crystarium is that it serves as a level cap for areas.  No matter how much you grind, you cannot get access to very powerful skills early.  At best, you would only be able to max out the ever-expanding Crystarium as it grows throughout the game.  The other extremely nice feature is that all characters gain CP, even if they are away from the current party.  So when the group splits up later, all CP earned by one group are automatically given to the others.  This keeps all six characters on exactly level footing, so it is impossible to have one character underleveled unless you choose not to spend their CP in the Crystarium.

If having a solid battle and character growth system were not enough, Final Fantasy XIII also excels visually.  Square Enix has taken the past few years to present what is possibly the best looking game of this generation.  Everywhere you look, there are little details that make the world of Cocoon come alive.  Also, Square Enix’s hallmark CG cutscenes are so well animated they are almost lifelike.  In a word, Final Fantasy XIII is gorgeous and will undoubtedly set the bar for some time to come.

Cactaurella’s plan to elope with Cletus was spoiled when her father caught them making their getaway.

These amazing graphics allow the game to shed itself of the world map, a long staple of RPGs as a genre.  In the old days, characters marched in place over tiles to go from place to place as a limitation of graphical ability.  Though many will miss the idea of an overworld map, you get around Cocoon the same way you’d get around your town.  Every aspect of the world is fully rendered.  One would think it would get boring pretty quickly, but the small size of the gameworld helps keep things interesting.  Terrains quickly change, and it never feels too contrived.

The other area where hardcore fans of the series may find fault is with the music.  It’s not that the music is bad.  In fact, it’s excellent. But it doesn’t sound like Final Fantasy.  You won’t hear the victory fanfare when winning fights, and don’t expect to hear the melodious crystal theme that we’ve all come to know.  Despite the fact that some purists may not like that some series staples have been omitted, the music is well suited to the game.  Many of the songs are quite catchy, and the lyrics to the Chocobo song seem like they always should have been there.

That brings us to the area of voice work.  In general, the voices fit the characters very well.  The only character that stands out in any negative way is Vanille.  She’s a little too perky, and for the first half of the game, her accent seems to change nearly constantly.  Aside from that, the voice work is generally superb, and lines are delivered in such a way as to make them more believable.  Final Fantasy XIII manages to do much more good than harm with the voice acting, which is very commendable these days.

Finishing Final Fantasy XIII can take anywhere from 50-70 hours depending on how much you want to grind and how many of the marks you hunt down.  Also, once you finish the game, your Crystarium exapands one final time, giving you the ability to begin hunting down the hardest marks.  Plus, there are weapons and equipment to craft, so it would be easy to spend another 20 hours or more on post-game content if you were so inclined.  Simply defeating the final boss is by no means the end of the game if you want to take your characters to the max.

The other issue with the plot that needs to be addressed is that the game is extremely linear.  Some people just will not like having every plot point laid out in breadcrumb fashion.  For those that enjoyed games like Final Fantasy IV, EarthBound, or The World Ends With You, the odds are, you will like Final Fantasy XIII. If you’re more a fan of open exploration, or even the 50/50 mix seen in classics like Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger, this might be a letdown.

As for the difficulty, in general, the game is pretty fair.  Some of the fights at the end can be punishingly hard, but there are very few fights that cannot be won by simply adapting your strategy to fit what is required at the time.  Random battles are certainly difficult, but considering you’ll start off at full health each time and you can usually begin with a pre-emptive strike, even the hardest fights can be won if you just figure out what you need to do.  All in all, it is one of the most balanced RPGs to date with the exception of the last dungeon and final boss, with its one-hit kills.

One last point that needs to be brought up is the baby chocobo that lives in Sazh’s afro.  It is one of the cutest mascot characters to ever grace a game, and quite frankly, every game needs more baby chocobo.  Every time you see it fly out, you can be relatively assured that it will be cute, probably funny, and it will undoubtedly leave a smile on your face.  It is hands down the best character in the entire game.

In the end, Final Fantasy XIII is a game that is nearly perfect, especially if you like linear games.  The battle system is fun, the graphics are breathtaking, and the music is catchy.  The frustrations of the bad mechanics at the end coupled with the convoluted plot that the player is just dropped into without explanation are the only real negatives to be seen.  It’s not even that the plot is bad; it’s just that for the first few hours, you will have no idea what’s going on.  When you add it all together, you get one of the best games in the series and easily the best RPG on PS3.  I can heartily say that it has been worth the wait.

This game was played to completion, including some post-game content and reviewed using a  copy provided by Square Enix.

The traditional Pokemon combat system should be fairly recognizeable to most gamers by this point; a one-on-one or two-on-two turn based battle where turn order is determined by Speed, and the outcome of battle is largely a matter of levels and elemental rock-paper-scissors. There have been no major changes from the combat system seen in Pokemon Platinum, an unsurprising move given that changes to the basic formula of the series only really occur in between Pokemon generations. Regardless, this incarnation of the Pokemon combat system is the best balanced and most open in the series so far, and although HG/SS doesn’t make any major alterations to it, it remains extremely solid and well thought out.

The Rockets are back, but unfortunately, they don’t stick around long.

However, due to some problems with levels and Pokemon encounter placement, the one area where the game suffers the most is in the overall balance. Perhaps the best example of this is the Johto Safari Zone, which is unavailable for much of the first half of the game, and yet the trainers and wild Pokemon on the route leading to it tend to be around level 10 to 20. The second half of the game has a different problem however; thanks to a much more malleable structure, it is reasonably easy for players to wander into encounters with dangerously overleveled Gym Leaders. There are also places in the game where the difficulty spikes quite badly, most notably at the first run through of the Elite Four, and at the third Gym. Most of these problems are actually artifacts of the original Gold and Silver games, which really points to the fact that the difficulty curve simply hasn’t been properly smoothed out, but some are due to seemingly minor things, like the disappearance of the Vs. Seeker.

Story, however, is an area where HG/SS tends to fall far short. Granted that story has never been the main focus of the Pokemon series, particularly during the era that saw the release of Gold and Silver, but when the main character’s motivation for becoming the strongest Pokemon trainer in the land is, “Meh, why not,” things begin to take a turn for the worse. What little story there is revolves around the resurgence of Team Rocket, the Pokemon-napping, generalized evil-doing, mafia-esque group of Red and Blue. Though still missing a distinct leader, the nasty ol’ Rockets are back to their old tricks, stealing and abusing Pokemon for fun and profit. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much it for plot, and it completely gives up less than halfway through the game. For a title that lasts upwards of sixty hours, the directionless story and motiveless main character is a serious issue.

Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver makes a major change to the way the interface is handled, moving the entire menu to the touch screen. Unfortunately, the end result is very hit and miss. For example, being able to save at any time with a simple touch of the screen is great, and very useful, and the new sorting method for the inventory is a welcome change. Being unable to move Pokemon around in bulk in the PC, however, is a definite step back, and adds far more steps to team management than is necessary. On average, the touch-intensive interface tends to speed things up a bit, but the new kinks it introduces to the setup really need to be smoothed out before it can reach the level of effectiveness that the old interface had already achieved.

The music and overall sound is the one area that has seen the greatest leap forward. Though there are still some awkward moments, most notably the continued inclusion of Game Boy and Game Boy Color-era sound effects for many Pokemon, the music has undergone a massive improvement in quality. Individual instruments are now easily distinguishable, and while the sound is just as modern as any other Pokemon soundtrack, the boost in sound quality can give it a more symphonic edge as needed. Overall, the music is a vast improvement.

Pokemon following behind you have a shocking variety of responses, which helps give them a bit more personality.

Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver aren’t spectacularly different from Pokemon Platinum, visually speaking, but there have been a few minor tweaks. The game includes more 3D elements, a greater variety of small details on the field, and in particular, the team’s lead Pokemon following behind the player. This last item may seem frivolous and a waste of effort, but the variety of reactions each Pokemon has lends them a great deal of personality, especially given that these reactions are context-sensitive. Pokemon will show nervousness in a rickety old tower, for example, and calm determination in the face of a Gym Leader. On the whole, the visuals of HG/SS are not particularly spectacular, or as much of a jump in quality from the previous games as the sound is, but the new developments it brings to the table are a definite improvement.

Due to the aforementioned balance issues and the fact that some of the trainers are just plain stronger, HG/SS is actually a bit tougher than your average Pokemon game. The extra length, which should top out at between 60 and 80 hours, boosts the difficulty a little as well, but on the whole, it should still not present much difficulty for most gamers.

From the late-game option to use the original Game Boy soundtrack to the Pokemon following behind the player, HG/SS is something of a love letter to longtime fans of the series. Unfortunately, though chock-full of bonus content and fun minigames, the core game is not quite as strong as it could be. In particular, the frail story and balance cause the game issues, though without a doubt those longtime fans will be able to look past these issues. It’s become something of a mantra with Pokemon games, that new ones won’t change the minds of gamers who dislike the series, but Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver are even less interested than most in changing perceptions of the series. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends entirely upon where you already stand on the series.

This game was played to completion and reviewed using a retail copy.