Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review
for the PSP
In the early 90s, Working Designs localized an RPG series called Lunar for the Sega CD. These games took advantage of the latest (at the time) in CD technology to provide a high quality soundtrack and fully animated cutscenes, but what these games are most remembered for these days are their endearing characters and amusing scripts.
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky comes the closest to capturing the feel of a Lunar game of any game I’ve played since the Sega CD era.
Trails in the Sky does this by featuring a fantastic localization with a ton of dialogue. Many reviews have likened Trails in the Sky to a novel and that’s an apt comparison. The game isn’t afraid to take its time to fully develop the game’s world and memorable characters. Even skipping much of the bonus content and non-essential dialogue, it still took me about 35 hours to complete the game and I daresay that story and dialogue took up at least half of that time. You’d be hard pressed to find another RPG so focused on story.
That’s not to say that the non-story elements in Trails in the Sky are lacking. Combat plays out like a streamlined Strategy/RPG offering more planning than most traditional turn-based RPGs while not being as slow paced as your typical Strategy/RPG. Stat and ability development offer a nice mix between allowing customization (a Materia-esque magic & accessory system) and making each character unique. Secondary characters join and leave the party on a regular basis, keeping things fresh. To go along with the heavy emphasis on story, most non-boss fights can be avoided without much difficulty. And despite being a port from the Japanese-only PC original, the UI works well, graphics look good, and load times are negligible.
Trails in the Sky’s methodical pace and focus on characters and world building isn’t for everyone, but for gamers looking to lose themselves in an RPG, it’s a rare treat. Ending on an especially exciting cliffhanger, the sequel can’t come out soon enough.
Outland is a hard game to categorize. There’s exploration and combat, platforming and puzzle solving, bullet dodging and bullet absorbing. The developers have taken inspiration from a number of gaming masterpieces like Ikaruga and Flashback, but is the final mix any good?
Outland starts out like any typical platformer but before long, the player unlocks the ability to change their character’s color between blue (balance) & red (chaos). When red, you absorb red energy and can damage blue enemies. When blue, you absorb blue energy and can damage red enemies. Switching between the two colors is essential to most of the game’s action as you desperately try to avoid getting hurt by off-color bullets while still being able to defeat enemies. Switching colors is also crucial to solving many of the game’s puzzles as some objects will only appear or activate when the player is a certain color.
Outland does a lot right. The visuals are gorgeous and stylized – forget XBLA and PSN, Outland has some of the best graphics seen in any game this year, digital or otherwise. The game controls fantastically with everything feeling just right. The levels are well designed and the boss fights are excellent.
Outland is a superb game, but there is one flaw that I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention. The pacing is all over the place. This manifests itself in a number of ways – the difficulty curve is too steep (early on, it’s a bit too easy, later on, it can get frustratingly difficult), the otherwise enjoyable score attack levels are overly long (shorter stages would work better for the replay mentality of leaderboard chasing), but most of all the slow, methodical searching for secrets part of the game clashes with the fast-paced action sequences with the result that the game lacks a smooth rhythm – the game is always either crawling or sprinting.
Howver, even with a few pacing problems, I still highly recommend Outland. It’s beautiful, it’s clever, it’s rewarding and at a mere $10, it’s even a good value as well.
This review is based on the XBox 360 version of the game.
One of the lesser known classics of the early arcade era is Taito’s Qix. In this game, you try to capture areas of the board by creating shapes. Once a shape is drawn, you’re safe, but if an enemy touches a shape while you’re creating it, you die. And that’s about it. A few sequels, remakes, and variations of the Qix style of gameplay have shown up over the years with my favorite being Patchwork Heroes for the PSP (I highly recommend picking it up if the PSN store ever returns).
Fortix 2 is basically Qix with more stuff and a fantasy setting. There are temporary power-ups to grab, a host of enemies, various obstacles, and towers that shoot at you until you capture them or capture a catapult to destroy them. The music is serviceable, the graphics are colorful, and there are achievements and leaderboards to compete on.
Unfortunately, adding a bunch of new stuff to Qix’s core gameplay doesn’t really make it any more fun. Due to the towers and enemies that shoot projectiles or lock onto your position, you rarely can build anything for more than a brief moment before getting killed. As a result, the basic strategy is to build a series of tiny shapes to avoid dying until you’re able to block off a large part of the map quickly. Effective? Yes, but also fairly tedious.
The game has 30 stages which took me about two hours to go through. A few of the stages had some clever ideas, but for the most part, I was looking forward to beating the game since I wasn’t having much fun.
But then, someone told me about Zombie mode and my entire opinion of the game changed. In this mode (which is unlocked by doing something repeated on the title menu), risk taking was finally encouraged with tombstones that threaten to create overwhelming armies of zombies if too much time is taken and enemies that are slow enough and dumb enough that you can create decent-sized shapes without dying to a projectile. Finally, I was playing because I was having fun and not just to write a review.
Let this be a lesson to game developers – adding extra modes can be a low cost way to drastically improve the quality and value of your games. I was ready to completely discount Fortix 2, but by adding a new mode which can’t have taken more than a few extra days to create, I ended up actually enjoying the game.
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is the latest spin-off from the venerable Might & Magic RPG series. Whereas the original Might & Magic series was a traditional RPG series and Heroes of Might & Magic is a Strategy/RPG hybrid, Clash of Heroes is a Puzzle/RPG. The game was originally released on the DS & just recently was released on XBLA & the PSN. I will be reviewing the XBLA version (which has some improvements over the DS version), although I assume the PSN version is about the same.
If you’ve played Puzzle Quest, many aspects of Clash of Heroes should be familiar. The general framework is similar to your typical RPG – you explore a fantasy world, you gain LVs, and you can customize your abilities – but the actual combat is heavily influenced by puzzle games. Whereas Puzzle Quest was basically Bejewelled with special attacks & more stats, Clash of Heroes’s combat is more original and better integrated into its RPG theme which I appreciate.
Basically, you have a grid of different colored units at the bottom and your opponent has a similar grid at the top. During your turn, you can grab units from the bottom and move them to another column, delete units, call for reinforcements, or use a spell (super attacks that can only be used when the spell meter is full). Match 3 units vertically and they become activated and will attack the enemy after X number of turns (depending on the unit type). Match 3 units horizontally and they will turn into a wall. First person to break through their opponents units and deal enough damage wins. Though there are a few advanced rules like earning extra moves by creating chains, using advanced units that are more difficult to activate but are more powerful and have cool special abilities, and dealing extra damage by getting same colored units to attack at the same time, the system is fairly easy to learn. On the negative side, the fact that you can only look up information on your own units and not your enemy’s (who may be using units you are unfamiliar with) can make it more difficult to form a good strategy early on.
There are several playable factions in the game, each of which has its own selection of units and relics (accessories that can be equipped that bestow various bonuses). Though there isn’t quite as much customization as I would have liked, there is still a good variety of units & abilities to be had between the various factions and everything feels pretty well balanced (unlike Puzzle Quest which had some classes & abilities that felt drastically more powerful than others). The gameplay is fun and deep, although luck can occasionally play a big role in the outcome.
The graphics have received a facelift from the DS version. The environments look gorgeous and the actual combat graphics looks quite good. Not so nice are the character portraits. Although some of them were well done, I felt that many of them looked like they were trying too hard to imitate an anime style of art without quite succeeding. Also, some of the text and numbers were on the small size which made them harder to read than they needed to be.
Unfortunately, the new HD graphics come at a cost – load times. Whenever you switch areas or start a new battle, you’re looking at a good 5-10 seconds worth of loading. While not long enough to ruin an otherwise great game, it is a definite negative.
Clash of Heroes has a fantastic amount of content for a game that only costs $15. The single player mode is quite long and gives you a good chance to try out the various heroes and factions. Although I wasn’t a fan of the story, I did enjoy how the game would occasionally change things up by giving you puzzle battles (win a preset arrangement in a single turn) or battles with special conditions like not allying an ally to come to harm. Between the lengthy single player mode and the new online multiplayer modes, there’s a lot of game to play here.
Though it has a few issues here and there like the load times and small text, the core of Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is solid. Clash of Heroes features unique, fun, and deep gameplay presented with great graphics, attached to a lengthy campaign and online multiplayer. At a mere $15, it’s well worth the price.
When it rains it pours. Just a week ago, I had the good fortune of reviewing Anomaly Warzone Earth, an excellent indie game with a unique twist on the tower defense genre (you’re the attacking force, not the defender). This week, I have the opportunity to release another tower defense with a twist – Sanctum.
Sanctum’s twist is that the game is played from a first person perspective. In addition to building mazes and creating automated tower defenses, you can also take part in the battle yourself and fire at the enemies directly with various guns in a typical FPS fashion. The closest game I can think of to this concept is Toy Soldiers on XBLA, but whereas that game let you possess your various units and take control of them directly for a time, in Sanctum, you actually have your own character with unique weapons to run around with.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t entirely sold on Sanctum’s concept to begin with. I’m a fan of well done tower defense games and I can enjoy a good FPS as much as the next guy, but I didn’t really see the point in merging them and was afraid that the end result would be less than the sum of its parts. After playing Sanctum for a few hours, I’m happy to see that my fears were misguided.
Adding FPS elements to a tower defense game has improved it in a few major ways. First, the action is more interactive and intense when your success depends on your direct involvement. Second, it adds another consideration for your resources – how much money should you spend on your own guns (and which ones?) versus how much money should you spend on towers. Finally, it adds another consideration for maze construction – not only do you have to consider what routes are best for tower effectiveness (a normal tower defense consideration), but also how effective your routes are for your own run & gun efforts.
The graphics are gorgeous, the levels are varied, and the enemies are creative and fun. Enemies with hard to hit weak points and enemies that speed up if your maze has too many straight lines are just a few of the challenges that help to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting. However, it’s the little touches that really elevate Sanctum to great status. Things like your own guns reloading even when they’re not equipped (encouraging the player to use their full arsenal), a map screen that lets you teleport to set nodes (allowing you to initiate multiple ambushes in a single wave instead of always chasing after the enemies), and the separation between build phase and combat phase (calm preparation and frantic action) all combine to result in a game that’s both a joy to play and full of depth.
However, there is one major flaw with Sanctum that could be a deal breaker for some people. The game doesn’t feel quite finished yet. Don’t get me wrong – what content is there is great and I didn’t run into any bugs, but there just isn’t that much content at the moment. As of the time of writing this review, the game only has three levels. These are long levels (each one should take about an hour to complete) and there are multiple difficulty levels, achievements, online leaderboards, and online co-op to encourage replay value, but it still feels like the developers should have waited until there were at least twice as many levels and a few more enemies/towers/weapons before releasing their game. Compared to other great tower defense games on Steam like Defense Grid and Anomaly Warzone Earth, Sanctum feels downright tiny. The developers are working on improving the game and adding more content, but it’s anyone’s guess how quickly those additions and improvements will come about.
It’s a shame that the game doesn’t have more content because that would make it an easy recommendation. As it is, I can highly recommend the game but only with stipulations. If you’re a big fan of tower defense games and enjoy replaying levels to improve your score (like me), then definitely pick it up. If you think Sanctum sounds like a fun idea and would like to help support the developer’s efforts to improve it, then it’s worth a purchase as well. Everyone else might want to take a wait and see approach – see if the developer makes good on their promise to expand and improve the game in the coming months. It’s currently a great game, but not necessarily a great value. Hopefully with a few more updates, it will be both.
I love a good tower defense game. Sure, there’s a lot of garbage in the genre, but I count Defense Grid and Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe as two of my favorite games of all time and Plants vs. Zombies gets a strong nod for being hilarious. After playing the recently released Anomaly Warzone Earth, it is definitely getting added to my list of favorites.
Some people have called Anomaly Warzone Earth a reverse tower defense game and that fits to a certain extent, although the gameplay still feels a lot like traditional tower defense games despite the twist. This big twist is that instead of building the defenses to defeat an incoming force, you’re the incoming force. You can have up to 6 units at a time and though they move automatically, you can choose and change their route, upgrade and purchase additional units, and support them with various powerups like healing & decoys. There’s a nice mix between methodical strategy (the game pauses when you adjust your route and purchase or upgrade units) and frantic action (grabbing power-ups and trying to deploy them before one of your units gets destroyed).
Quite possibly the best thing about Anomaly Warzone Earth is just how well designed the campaign levels are. Each new level seems to add a new twist, whether it’s a new unit, a new enemy or a new situation that adds a twist to the gameplay. For example, one of my favorite levels in the campaign was one where you couldn’t purchase any new units but instead your additional units were scattered about a relatively open stage and you have to decide the best way to grab them all before making your way to the exit. Another neat level had you escorting a damaged transport vehicle to a repair station and so you had to use your units & power-ups to destroy or distract enemies in its path.
The presentation values deserve special notice. Simply put, this is one of the best looking indie games I’ve ever seen. There’s a cool pre-title screen cutscene that wouldn’t look out of place in a $60 retail title, the in-game graphics look excellent, the switch between the gameplay and tactical views (used to view the map and change your route) is slick, and the music, sound effects, and voice acting are all solid. Controls are great and responsive and load times are minimal. In short, very professional.
The game is relatively short and can probably be completed in about 5 hours, but it’s filled with replay value. There are 3 difficulty levels and various medals for efficiency, directness, and brutality to be earned. In addition to the scenario levels (of which there are a little over a dozen), there are also 2 story-devoid, score-attack focused wave attack levels for additional playtime. On the Steam version (which is the one I’ve been playing), there are several leaderboards to compete on. Steam achievements are intelligently thought out – I especially like how every single level has an achievement tied to a secondary objective like saving up X number of power-ups or never letting your commander unit pass out. I’ll definitely be playing this game long after completing the story mode to improve my scores and earn achievements and medals.
Really, my biggest complaint about Anomaly Warzone Earth is that I wish there was more of it. As complaints go, that’s about as positive as you get. Here’s hoping that quality DLC and expansion packs follow the initial release.
The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile is the sequel to the The Dishwasher: Undead Samurai (winner of the 2007 Dream-Build-Play competition). The Dishwasher: Undead Samurai was a pretty good game – basically a 2D indier version of Devil May Cry. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, on the other hand, is an excellent game that builds and improves on its predecessor in every way. It looks better, it sounds better, and it plays better. Oh and there’s even a new 3D mode for all the owners of fancy 3D TVs out there.
The first thing that struck me about Vampire Smile is just how easy it is to be incredibly awesome. You really get the feeling that the developer wants the player to succeed. Sure, there are a ton of special moves and weapons to master if you want to rack up the high scores or finish the game on the harder difficulties (which can be extremely difficult), but while you’re busy learning the ropes, you can have a lot of fun just mashing buttons. Between infinite teleportation, brutal finishing moves, a wide variety of ridiculous over-the-top weapons (4 of which can be equipped and switched between on the fly), and a dynamic camera, it’s hard to avoid looking totally awesome while you’re playing this game. And that’s just the regular fights – the boss fights are even cooler.
Another thing that struck me when playing the game was how much better balanced it felt than the first one. In the first game, it felt like every enemy had a ton of health and was a deadly threat, whereas in this one, it feels like there’s a greater mix of enemy types. There are still plenty of deadly and hard to kill enemies, but there are more cannon fodder enemies as well, which makes combat feel faster paced and more varied. The game also scales up the challenge more gradually now, so less experienced players should be able to get further into the game before running into trouble.
There’s a lot of content to keep players coming back for more. Many different difficulty levels, a campaign (which can be played as the new charater, Yuki, or the original Dishwasher, each with their own selection of unique weapons), a Time Trial mode, an Arcade mode with 50 one room challenges (some of which have twists on the regular gameplay), various leaderboards, offline and online multiplayer and more, the game has more content than some retail games and all for the mere price of 800 MS points ($10 USD).
If the thought of teleporting behind an enemy, launching them into the air, shooting them a bit, then slamming them down to the ground with your chainsaw arm before finishing them off with a gory finisher fills you with glee, then I highly recommend buying The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile when it comes out April 6th on XBox Live Arcade.
I’ll have a full review in a couple of weeks after I’ve played more, but in the meantime, here’s a suggestion – if you own a PSP and like RPGs, buy Trails in the Sky. Localizing this game was a huge undertaking for XSeed Games – the amount of text in this game is staggering – and a big risk given the dwindling market for PSP games in the US. Based on the couple of hours I’ve played so far, they’ve done a fantastic job with the translation – lots of great banter between characters and amusing non-essential dialogue – and they deserve to be rewarded. Translation quality seems accurate to me (I’ve played a few hours of the Chinese PC version – yes, I can read Chinese). More importantly (for me), the game is the first in a series with direct sequels and I’d really like to see the rest of the series brought over here. The story and characters have a definite Lunar feel to them (Lunar 1 & 2, not the later ones where the series turned to garbage) and the gameplay is traditional turn-based with a dash of Strategy/RPG. Character customization is a mix of unique character skills and a materia-esque magic system. Good stuff.
Oh and if like me, you were worried about the transition to the PSP (the game was originally a PC title), don’t be. On the PSN version that I have, the game loads very quickly, the visuals are pretty much identical to the original version, and the controls are great.
The game is available on the PSN for $30 and on UMD for $30 (Standard Edition) or $40 (Special Edition).
Trivia or Die is one of the better trivia games on the XBox Live Indie Games service in a few very important ways. First, the questions are interesting. Second, the answers are fair – none of this “Here are 4 slightly different numbers to choose from” garbage. Third, if you go to the Options menu and turn off the Insults, the game is pretty fast paced.
With that said, the game is not perfect. The themes aren’t really very well integrated into the game – it’s trying to be both a bad Japanese game show and a Save the World through trivia game and neither theme is developed very well. There aren’t a lot of questions – in about 30-40 minutes of play, we saw a few repeats. Oh and if you’re not American, be warned that one of the question categories is US trivia.
However, when all things are said and done, Trivia or Die really is noticeably better than the vast majority of XBLIG trivia games, so if you’ve got an evening free with a couple of friends, feel like some trivia, and have an extra dollar, it’s not a bad choice.
So the good people at Zachtronics Industries sent me a review copy of their latest puzzle game, SpaceChem. After playing the game for a bit, I ran into a problem that I have never run into when reviewing a game.
I can’t finish the tutorial.
It’s not that I’ve run into a bug or anything. I just can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel like I missed a prerequisite college class that’s required to understand the game. What’s truly infuriating about the whole situation is that the game has been receiving rave reviews left and right, so obviously, I’m the one who is broken, not the game.
I know there’s a demo for the game on Steam so go ahead and download that. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did. It really does look like it’d be a neat game once you figure it out.
EDIT: And now I feel silly. Right after writing this, I gave the game another shot and I figured out the solution to my problem right away. The tutorial wanted me to move a bonder from one place to another on the board, whereas I was erroneously trying to create a new bonder.
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